Several steps are being taken by Fiji's international airline, Air Pacific to continue to reduce costs as it anticipates a greater loss for the current financial year.

Air Pacific Managing Director and CEO John Campbell said while they have no immediate plans to reduce staffing or impose pay cuts, they have maintained the staff freeze so that new appointments are not being made except for operationally critical areas.

Campbell said when staff leave they are not automatically replaced and a pay freeze is also in place.

Air Pacific has also placed a general expenditure freeze on all items with the exception of customer service, safety and security related expenditures.

The management said it made every effort to generate improved revenue and remove costs as the airline company announced huge losses earlier this week for 2008 and 2009, and greater losses expected for the current financial year.

The Air Pacific group comprising Richmond Limited, joint of Sofitel Fiji Resort and Spa, Fiji Airlines Limited, trading as Pacific Sun and Air Pacific Limited, experienced a loss before tax of $14.3 million versus a profit of $38.15 million for the years 2007 and 2008.

This is a negative swing of $52.45 million.

Air Pacific incurred a pre-tax loss of $12.24 million for 2008 and 2009, versus a profit of 41.09 million the preceding year, a swing of $53.3 million.

The airline company's revenue increased by $80 million which is an improvement of 15 percent but expenditure rose by $110 million, an increase of 21 percent.

Despite the huge losses, it has been revealed that for the first time the group carried more than one million passengers compared to just over 901,000 passengers in the last financial year.

Air Pacific Managing Director John Campbell said high fuel prices and Fiji's unique circumstances meant that revenue could not be generated sufficiently or costs removed rapidly enough, to eliminate the loss.