Fiji government showdown

with inter-island shippers

The crisis in Fiji inter-is land shipping forecast by Mr Lloyd Williams, managing director of Williams Shipping Co Ltd, of Suva PIM,(Oct, p 63), arrived sooner than any one expected. Williams Ship ping has announced a loss of about SF33 000 for the year ended December 31, 1976, while Rabi Holdings Ltd was expected to report a loss of about $35 000.

The two companies now dominate the inter-island shipping trade. Williams Shipping has the Taoniu (for merly the Aoniu owned by the Tongan Government) and the Komaiwai. Rabi Holdings op erates the Ai Sokula and the Tovata. Williams and Gosl ings operates the government ship, Kaunitoni, under charter, mainly to the Lau is lands.

The shipping companies blame their losses on inade quate freight rates and high overhead costs. Mr Williams has warned the government that his company will with draw its ships from service unless it receives a govern ment subsidy or is allowed to raise freight charges by at least 40%.

The Williams Shipping vessels are in the Lloyds class, which is expensive to main tain. To remain in that class, which is desirable from a commercial point of view, each ship requires an over haul and survey every four years. The overhaul costs any thing between $2O 000 and $3O 000 a ship. The Ai Sokula is in the Bureau Veritas class, the French version of Lloyds,

and the Tovata is in Lloyds class.

Mr Williams considers that the only way to ensure sur vival of the industry is for the government to grant a subsidy of $lO 000 for ships in the two classes. That would be an in centive for other operators to

upgrade their ships. Lloyd

class ships were known for their safety and reliability in carrying passengers and freight.

However, shipowners re ceived a 10% increase in freight charges from Novem ber 25, nowhere near what they claimed they needed to operate viable services. They originally applied to the Prices and Incomes Board for a 35% rise, and expected at least 25% according to Cap tain Korty Mitchell, manager of Williams Shipping Co and treasurer of the Inter-island Shipowners’ Association.

Captain Mitchell says the Prices and Incomes Board and the government should make an overall review of Fiji’s shipping industry. In spite of the 10% rise, the future did not look bright.

Owners hoped the govern ment would award another in crease next year. • Air Pacific and Fiji Air will compete for the first time on a Fiji internal route, open ing up Bua in Vanua Levu.

Competition will not, however, be direct, as they will service the route on dif ferent days. Bua people until now have had to make a 137 km road trip to Labasa to join an aircraft.

Briefly

• Production of the McDonnell Douglas DCIO will rise to two a month shortly, double the 1977 rate.

The increase signals an over all upswing in the civil air transport business. • Current wide-body airliner types will be flying till well into the 21 st century, two top Lockheed engineers told a recent aerospace conference in London. The next develop ment, they say, might be a hy drogen-powered hypersonic airliner that would bypass the second generation supersonic. • Qantas has received the Flight Safety Foundation’s prestigious award for air safe ty. During the past 25 years, Qantas has flown 54 280 million revenue passenger miles, carried I 3 132 827 passengers, involving more than one million take-offs and landings, all without a single fatality. • The Fairey company, UK, which controlled pro duction of the highly suc cessful Britten-Norman Islander and Trislander aircraft, has gone into re ceivership. • Air Niugini and third line operators are now using Nadzab airport, about 40 km from Lae, Papua New Guinea.

The old Lae airport will be closed when the PNG Defence

Force transport squadron is re-established at Port Mores by. • The Queen Salamasina, a 156-passenger 14-vehicle fer ry built in Fremantle, WA, for Western Samoa, will soon be delivered. The $2.8 million craft, an aid gift from Australia, will operate across Apolima Strait, between Upolu and Savaii. • American Airlines agreed to re-employ 300 stewardesses fired after they became pregnant and to pay them more than $2 million in compensation. About half the women are actually expected to return to work, although they were dismissed between 1965 and 1970. • Tuvalu is looking at the possibility of setting up a marine training school at Funafuti. A master mariner and an architect from Australia recently went to Tuvalu to investigate plan ning and design of the propos ed school. Several hundred Tuvaluan seamen are employed by a number of the world’s major shipping lines. • Two airlines in Western Samoa have sold out to Polynesian Airlines. They are Air Samoa and Samoa Aviation Ltd, which in 1976 merged their operations in a vain effort to fight spiralling costs.

Polynesian Airlines will maintain the services pre viously operated by them to Fagaloo, Faleolo, Maota, Lalomalava and Asau.

Seamen from Williams Shipping Co Ltd's Komowai leap over the side for their traditional swim ashore at Somosomo, Taveuni, Fiji.

Captain John Regan, formerly of Bellingen, NSW, has been appointed senior Boeing 707 captain for Air Niugini, the national airline of Papua New Guinea. His appointment follows his successful pass of an 18-month long intense conversion training programme by Qantas.

He is flying Air Niugini's routes from Sydney and Brisbane to Port Moresby and on to Hong Kong, Manila and Japan.