with Polynesian

Trade

Winds

After Air Vanuatu, Ansett links up

with Polynesian

Hopes dashed on

Nasilai oil

Tests done on oil samples from last October’s oil ‘seepage’ at Nasilai, Fiji, have dashed hopes of a major oil find.

Three separate tests were carried out: one in Houston, USA, another by Fiji’s Mineral Resources Department, and a third at the University of the South Pacific.

All indicated that the Nasilai ‘seepage’ had not been proved to originate from a deep crude oil source.

McKay’s new

service

A new shipping service is to be introduced between New Zea land and Vanuatu, the US Trust Territories, Kiribati and Nauru.

It will be operated by McKay Shipping Ltd, the New Zealand agent for Kyowa Line.

Esso PNG’s

big search

Esso PNG has begun a $5 million base metals exploration programme in Papua New Guinea. The firm will prospect for copper, lead, zinc, gold, silver and molybdenum over a two-year period. The pro gramme covers five prospecting licences in New Britain and New Ireland, as well as in an area between Goroka and Porgera in the Highlands, and in the d’Entrecasteaux Islands, Milne Bay Province. However, even if a discovery proved commercially viable, it is esti mated that an additional five to eight years would pass before production could start.

Ansett Airlines of Australia took over the management from February 1 of Western Samoa’s flag-carrier Polynesian Airlines.

The chairman of Polynesian Airlines, Ted Annandale, and a spokesman for Ansett, an nounced the management deal in mid-January.

There had been speculation that Ansett was seeking a 30 percent share in Polynesian Airlines in addition to taking over the management, but neither of the companies re ferred to any shareholding ar rangements when they an nounced the management con tract.

Ansett Airlines of Australia is part of the Australian trans port giant Ansett Transport Industries which already owns a 40 percent share in Air Vanuatu.

Announcing the new arrange ments, Mr Annandale said that the route structure of Polynesian Airlines would be expanded to take advantage of the potential of a Boeing 737 jet which the airline bought last year. The airline is based in Apia and its existing flights are to the Cook Islands, Tonga, Tahiti, Fiji, Niue and New Zealand. Mr Annandale also announced that Ansett would take over responsibility for re payments on the Boeing jet.

Mr Annandale said: ‘Ansett is generally recognised as the most efficient regional airline.

We consider that under the new arrangement it should be poss ible to streamline Polynesian operations and to obtain the benefit of Ansett’s undoubted marketing ability.’

As far back as November 1981, four senior Ansett officials were reported in Apia for talks with their Polynesian Airlines counterparts. But at the lime spokesmen for both sides kept strictly mum on what the talks were about.

However, by January an Aus tralian press report quoted an Ansett spokesman as conceding that a ‘management agreement’ was being discussed with the Western Samoa airline. But, he

added, nothing had yet been signed. Another report quoted an Ansett source as saying the company hoped the deal would be signed ‘by the end of January’ which it duly was.

The move into Polynesian came just after Ansett had bowed out of Papua New Guinea’s carrier Air Niugini: until quite recently the com pany owned 1 1.6 percent of Air Niugini, but its proportionate holding has been gradually re duced by increases in the air line’s capital. Its remaining interest of just over 7 percent was finally sold to the PNG Government in December.

Ansett has long been cam paigning with the Australian Government for the right to fly

short-haul international routes in the region. It suffered a reverse when the Australian Government in December called off a civil aviation policy review which would have exam ined Qantas’s position on short haul, low-traffic services, and announced there would be no further review of the position.

This amounted to a reaffirm ation of the government’s long held position that Qantas should be the sole Australian international carrier.

But Ansett has been able to step around this obstacle be cause, in the Vanuatu case as with Western Samoa, its nego tiations were conducted directly with the respective govern ments.

The new agreement could lead to some Ansett aircraft being decked out in Polynesian livery and used on the present and future network of Poly nesian Airlines. Ansett could also seek to open air links between Australia and Apia.

Insofar as the Ansett-Air Vanuatu partnership may be seen as a precedent, it must be encouraging to those involved in setting up the new arrange ment. For it has been a con siderable success.

As John Mulcair reported in The Australian of January 12: ‘The Vanuatu services have been so successful, with holiday-makers able to buy air travel and a week in a top hotel

Air Polynesia’s Ted Annandale.

He believes Ansett manage ment and connections will help solve current problems.

Charlie Zulu Delta, Ansett’s DC 9 on regular charter to Air Vanuatu, displays its striking Air Vanuatu livery. The VH shows the aircraft is still on the Australian register.

for less than the Sydney-Perth air fare, that a second weekly Ansett DC-9 service has started.’

Ansett at present flies one of its DC-9s in Air Vanuatu colours twice weekly to Port- Vila'via Noumea. The service will be improved to non-stop

Boeing 727 s when upgrading of

Port-Vila’s Bauerfield runway is completed.

In another move in the direc tion of expansion into the Pacific, Ansett has been dis cussing buying a third share in the Rarotongan Hotel, Cook Islands. The hotel is now owned by Air New Zealand, which wants to sell off property in the hope of reducing an expected massive operating loss.

Air Pacific’s

pulse taken

Two Singapore Airlines special ists are due in Fiji this month to survey the management of Air Pacific.

The move follows govern ment concern at the airline’s financial plight.

AMI buys a

Hs74B

Purchase of a Hawker Siddeley 748 aircraft by the Airline of the Marshall Islands (AMI) has been approved by the new High Commissioner for the Trust Territory, Mrs Janet McCoy.

Reports say that because of the favourable exchange rate between sterling and the US dollar, the government saved SUSSOO 000 on the purchase price of more than $lO million.

A demonstration HS74B is

expected to arrive in the Marshalls late in June and to be used for six months while the new plane is being built.

The sale was handled on the British side by representatives of the British Aerospace Cor poration.

Describing the purchase as a ‘bold move’, Marshalls Presi dent Amata Kabua thanked Great Britain for its assistance once again in ‘moving forward’. (The first instance was British assistance with a new power plant in the Marshalls.) The president said he hoped to be able to thank the British ‘in person’ at some time in the future.

The 48-passenger HS74B has a proven record of performance in the Pacific. It has been used successfully by Fiji’s Air Pacific, Western Samoa’s Polynesian Airlines, Air New Zealand and the Royal Austra lian Air Force

Tahiti display

of Oz wares

Sales worth $4l 700 were made at the recent Australian trade display in Tahiti. Sales still under negotiation are estimated at $l6B 300.

The 25 exhibitors represent ing approximately 35 firms esti mate that further sales will realise $485 000 during the next 12 months.

Six agents were appointed, 15 agencies are under nego tiations and 44 inquiries were made by potential agents. Three hundred trade inquiries were received during the three-day show.

The display, the first of its kind in French Polynesia, drew a repesentative cross-section of visitors from government, and business.

HS748 - a proven performer at a good exchange rate.