planning to

Solomon I.

An airline planning to stay at home

While some regional airlines, such as Air Pacific and Air Niugini have wider horizons, Solomon Islands operator Solair Limited wants to carry on doing what it has been doing for a number of years providing an efficient, internal

passenger/freight service,

writes Irene Hawkins in Honiara.

The pressure for expansion outside national boundaries is not on Solair as it is on Air Niugini and Air Pacific.

Solomon Islands has no major tourist traffic to safeguard; nor is it likely to have in the fore seeable future given the government’s lack of interest in tourism.

Three airlines Air Niugini, Air Pacific and Air Nauru provide services to and from Solomon Islands. Air Niugini

links Honiara with Port Moresby and Kieta in Papua New Guinea; Air Pacific, Solomon Islands’ designated international airline, carries traffic to and from Brisbane and Vila; and Air Nauru pro vides Honiara with direct access to Guam, Japan, Manila and Hongkong. All in all, Solomon Islands is pretty well connected with the world.

Services to Kieta via the Western Solomons and, more recently, to Santo, New Hebrides, via Santa Cruz in the Eastern Solomons, are not first steps toward turning the airline into a long-haul carrier.

Rather, they reflect its desire to tap a potentially substantial ethnic traffic at either end of the Solomons chain where in ternational boundaries mean nothing to inter-related peo ples. However, Solair and the government would have to rethink present policy if

developments in regional

aviation threaten to leave the country in a vacuum.

Solair’s fleet now numbers seven aircraft three 10-seat Queenairs, two 9-seat Island ers, one 5-seat Beech Baron, and one 3-seat amphibian Buc caneer. They serve 22 airstrips, providing most with at least two services a week.

Solair has come a long way since the days of its prede

cessor, Megapode Airways,

which started Solomon Islands first scheduled internal service in December 1963. The company’s greatest era of expansion has been since 1976 when its present owner, Talair, the big PNG mainland third level operator took over. In that year, Talair added the three Queenairs.

This year Solair hopes to carry 35 000 passengers and 280 tonnes of cargo in about 6200 hours flying time. All three figures are about twice what they were three years ago when its present manager Paul Brown took over. In the same period the load factor has grown from 52.9% to 59% last year and, hopefully, over 60% this year.

With substantial increases in piston engine fuel, Solair is now being forced to look earlier than it might have done at beginning to re-equip with

turbo-prop aircraft such as the Nomad or Metro. Both of these aircraft would show a consider able reduction in fuel costs per seat kilometre.

Re-equipping will be a deli cate process both from the load factor and financing points of view. A new Nomad costs around SSI 650 000 against a second-hand Queen air at $l2O 000. The company doesn’t envisage any trouble getting the necessary loan. The vital thing is to get a loan on concessional terms so that the airline is not faced with an im possible loan-servicing burden.

It is here that the recently formed partnership between the government and Ampac Holdings of the New Hebrides, the ultimate owners, could prove invaluable. Since April this year the government has held a 49% stake in Solair with the option of increasing to 51% within the next five years. The question of finance, however, will be complicated by the fact that the market for second hand piston engine planes is bound to be sticky.

A fleet of Nomads, Metros, Twin Otters or Bandeirantes, together with a Beech Baron

for longer-haul, low-density

traffic and charter, should be able to look after the Solomons’ needs for both pass enger and cargo traffic for quite a few years. These planes would require no major new infrastructure investment be yond the upgrading of some airstrips. Henderson* Field, which serves Honiara, in par ticular, is in urgent need of resurfacing if it is to continue taking the bigger aircraft of the regional airlines.

This Solair scenario is dependent upon links with the outside world. Solomon Islands has long been a sup porter of regional co-operation in aviation but, unfortunately its voice has had little impact.

Regional co-operation in a real sense has still not been achieved.

If Air Pacific were to stop calling for technical or econ omic reasons - Solair and the government would be forced to look to such alternatives as

wet-leasing, perhaps, Air

Nauru aircraft, to handle ex ternal routes.