Airline’s shares suspended

NORFOLK Airlines Ltd, an airline which had plans to take on the south-west Pacific, is facing prob lems after some of its subsidiaries were hit with winding-up orders. The Australian Stock Exchange followed up by suspend ing the company’s shares.

The airline, owned by people living on the island, operates more than 50 aircraft with flights to Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island, and services in the rural areas of Queensland, New South Wales

and Western Australia. It has previously been threatened with Stock Exchange suspension because it has too few share holders for a listed company.

The airline had planned a Brisbane based expansion into Vanuatu, New Caledonia and New Zealand. It was reported recently that the company already held landing rights at Port Vila and had received tentative approval from the French Government for Noumea. □