Fiji Airways to run Gilberts' internal service

run Gilberts' internal service

Fiji Airways Ltd. has won rights to operate the Gilbert and Ellice Islands’ internal air ser vice. It beat bids from several

other airlines, including Fiji’s Air

Pacific and the Solomons’ Solair.

GEIC’s strips will be serviced by several of Fiji Airways aged Heron aircraft, currently lying idle at Fiji airports, beginning on May 1.

Currently the GEIC has four ser viceable strips for an air service— Funafuti, in Ellice Islands, and Tarawa, Abemama and North Tabiteuea (opened in mid-March), in the Gilberts.

Under a recent airport develop ment plan for the GEIC, strips at the Gilbert atolls of Butaritari, Abaiang and Nonouti are to fol low Tarawa’s up-grading. Then a strip was to be built on the northern Ellice atoll of Namumea. Work on Tarawa’s strip has now started.

Hardly a surprise

The choice of Fiji Airways as the air operator is hardly a surprise. The Western Pacific High Commission is a cash shareholder in the company and the GEIC is part of the WPHC.

To add to this, Fiji Airways, with HS 748 aircraft, is the only airline servicing the GEIC, with weekly flights out of Nadi.

Fiji Airways, prompted by one of its shareholders, Qantas, announced some months ago that it planned to run internal services in the New Hebrides, Tonga and the GEIC with Britten-Norman Islander aircraft (ordered for NG and the Solomons).

However, the GEIC won’t see these planes—at least to start with.

The GEIC’s internal air services is yet another sign of Fiji Airway’s growing strength in the South Pacific. • About 6,000 Papuans from Dobu, North Normanby Islands and South Fergusson Islands, in the Milne Bay District, voluntarily left their homes and went to nearby islands in April after being alarmed at con tinuous earth tremors in their area.

Chief Vulcanologist Dr. D’Addario reported that there was no volcanic threat.