AIR NIUGINI AIRCRAFT’S FUEL SUPPLY CAPACITY LIMITS PASSENGERS ON FLIGHTS

By Vonu LIBITINO, Port Moresby

Air Niugini (ANG) Aircrafts have to fly out of Port Moresby with enough fuel to return back and occasionally, this means the National Carrier has to sacrifice payload which is the amount of available weight that you can store on board and still safely fly.

This was revealed by ANG’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr Gary Seddon, when he presented at the recently held World Tourism Day Conference at the APEC Haus in Port Moresby.

“This situation remains precarious as we must sacrifice payload capacity to carry enough fuel for round trips and [account] for potential disruptions or weather events.

This has resulted in fewer seats been available on aircrafts and impacting the flow of tourists and normal travellers/customers of Air Niugini (ANG) into their destination,” Mr Seddon explained.

The ANG CEO said the aircrafts have fuel when they fly out of Port Moresby, where there is a steady supply, however other regional centers there is no integrity and consistency of fuel supply.

“So, if some of you have gone to the airport and being told that, sorry, we can’t put you on this aircraft today, we will put you on the next available flight, it is highly likely you will have been subject to the challenges that we currently have with fuel supply in the region,” Mr Seddon said.

The ANG CEO went onto explain their objectives, in light of this emerging and increasingly limiting challenge of limited fuel supply for the National Carrie’s fleet.

It is our objective to provide the citizens of PNG with competent, safe and appropriate air transport services.

This objective is something that we hold very dear to us and we are continuing to work with those state-owned enterprises to lift the supply of fuel in our regional centers,” Mr Seddon declared.