of flying

Making sense out of flying

AIR NAURU has fallen more than once. But when it took to the air again last year it replaced Nauru with Australia as centre of its network.

It’s Sydney spokeswoman Kate Williams contends that Air Nauru’s problem was using the native country as central base. It failed to reap profits as much as it could had it taken marketing seriously. (A pilot’s dispute clipped the wings of the airline in 1989).

“Before the airline was for Nauruans and it was carrying other passengers just because they happen to be travelling that way,” said Williams. “It operated for Nauruans. Nobody did anything about air schedules before because all that mattered was where Nauruans wanted to go.”

Fares were kept low because “that is what Nauruans could pay and wanted to pay to do shopping, attend functions or visit relatives in Australia and Fiji”.

But a bit of innovative thinking and research into how to achieve dividends from a national carrier is about to turn Air Nauru into profitability. “I think now it would be commercially viable,”

Williams told Pacific Islands Monthly.

The government-owned airline has opened connections out of Australia and Hawaii that “makes sense” and are aimed at tourist destination markets in Micronesia where competition is only from Airline of Marshall Islands and Continental Airlines. Air Nauru is focuss ing on selling tourist packages to Kiri bati’s Christmas Island, outer islands in the Federated States of Micronesia and Nauru.

It has re-established air services be tween Nauru and Honolulu, with stops at Tarawa and Christmas Island. On a boeing 737 jet, the weekly round-trip flight departs Nauru on Tuesdays for Honolulu. It returns to Nauru via Kiribati. With the re-start, Air Nauru has restored flights out of Kiribati as well as Nauru. Kiribati has resumed selling fresh fish to Hawaii from Christmas island, considered one of the finest sports fishing spots. The Air Nauru flight, which was inaugurated January 29, also links Kiribati’s two major population centres Tarawa and Christmas island.

It carries foodstuffs and machinery from Australia to Nauru on two weekly

Melbourne-Sydney-Nauru flights. On

Mondays it flies Sydney-Nauru and on Tuesdays Sydney-Tarawa. □