The Air Pacific management has not said anything as yet following the interim cabinet's decision to review the operations of the national airline last week.
Fijivillage News has sent questions to the Air Pacific Chief Executive, John Campbell however he has not replied despite promises made that he would respond on Air Pacific's operations.
Meanwhile Interim Finance Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry said the government owns major shares in Air Pacific which makes the airline's commercial viability very much its concern.
According to Chaudhry, Air Pacific is a stagnating airline, its profits are declining, it is not expanding and no new major international destinations have been added to its flight network in the past two decades. Chaudhry also said there are serious employee relations problems.
The Interim Finance Minister who is part of the review committee, said it is ridiculous for anyone to say that as the major shareholder the Fiji government should sit back and not take timely action to set things right to avert the problems.
He also said the national airline's worsening standards is a worry to the tourism sector and chronic mechanical problems associated with its ageing fleet of aircraft is causing delays in the airline's on time performance, sapping confidence in its reliability and efficiency.
Chaudhry said the Air Pacific board and senior management have to take full responsibility for the poor state of the airline today.
On Thursday, Air Pacific announced a 620% increase in profits for the year ending March 2008.
Air Pacific Chairman Nalin Patel has revealed that this is a record achievement for the airline with a profit before tax of $38.2 million compared to $5.3 million for the previous year with the group airlines carrying a record 994,000 passengers.
Patel said 2007/2008 year was extremely challenging for Air Pacific and the Group and it incorporated a period of recovery and consolidation after the events of December 2006 and a poor first quarter which required heavily discounted airfares and numerous tactical campaigns.
Air Pacific Mum on Cabinet Decision
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