flip Pacific spreads its wings

AIR PACIFIC plans to spread it swings with new services to Adelaide, Cairns, and the Cook Islands, while also giving the go-ahead to a long-awaited hotel pro

ject.

The company’s new Boeing 737-800, which was delivered to Fiji late May, was due to begin operating on the Nadi- Melboume route on the second of this month, and will also e used on Brisbane ser vices and on planned twice-weekly direct flights to and from Adelaide.

Air Pacific has been discussing the pro posed Adelaide route with Australian avia tion authorities, according to general man ager for strategic planning, Dinesh Chandra, who went to Seattle to supervise the han dover of the new 737-800 from the Boeing company.

Adelaide tourists bound for Fiji now have to change at Melbourne or Sydney.

The airline is also looking at new routes next year to the Cook Islands, linking Nadi Auckland, and Rarotonga, and to Cairns in north Queensland - which would connect to

Air Pacific’s growing Los Angeles service and eliminate the need for American tourists to fly to Sydney first.

Air Pacific’s chief executive Michael McQuay, told AAP it was hoped work would start on the airline’s resort hotel at Denarau, a 15-minute drive from Nadi International Airport, in the third quarter of this year. Originally, the hotel was to have been managed by the Hyatt Group but after the Asian economic downturn, considera tion of tenders and the management contract were re-evaluated, and plans put on hold.

McQuay said Air Pacific needed an operator able to inject more equity into the project, which Hyatt was unable to do while also considering taking advantage of the bargain-basement prices for hotels in Asia.

Talks between Air Pacific and another interested operator were “in the final stages”, he said, adding: “they are ready to sign”. McQuay said the new hotel and the $2O million Outrigger Reef Resort expan sion now underway would boost the supply of hotel rooms in Fiji which had not kept pace with increased airline seat capacity.

(Aap) ■