airspace

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Aviation

Pacific to lease airspace

The Smaller Island States of the South Pacific have decided to lease their airspace to airlines flying in the region.

The decision was made at the two-day Smaller Island States meeting prior to the 28th South Pacific Forum in Cook Islands

in September.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Henry said the idea was one way of earning revenue from the states’ isolat edness. But since the announcement was made, the issue of what was being charged and who would pay has become cloudy. At the time, Sir Geoffrey had said there would not be additional charges made “because there are some people who are already charging and collecting on our behalf’.

“All we are saying is, it’s our airspace and if anyone is collecting revenue from

that, that airspace is a resource that belongs to the Cook Islands, Niue, Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati and so on and the money from that resource ought to go to people who own that resource.”

He declined to say who was collecting what.

Sir Geoffrey said this was a natural resource which belonged to the islands

but plundered by some

one else.

“And I choose the word carefully.” He

added that Fiji was seeking to make their flight information centre more regional and, if they did succeed, they would reap something like $2O million by 2000.

When Sir Geoffrey made the com ments, a spokesman from Air New Zealand in the Cook Islands said hitting commer cial airlines with a user-pays fee for airspace use would be met with consider able international resistance from the avia-

tion industry.

Gerald Wilson said Air New Zealand, like other airlines, paid fees to the Fiji flight information centre.

“To impose what appears to be another tax on the travel industry would be to change the competitiveness and appeal of the Cook Islands as compared with other destinations within the region,” he said. ■

Sir Geoffrey “It’s our airspace”