Virgin Australia is now reviewing its options after Samoa's decision to end their decade long joint venture later this year.
Virgin Australia says the joint venture, called Virgin Samoa, will not continue after November 12, and it will provide an update on its plans in due course.
The airline also says any affected travellers will be contacted in due course to discuss their travel options.
Our correspondent in Apia Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia told Sara Vui-Talitu that Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has given the airline time before reinstating the national carrier, Polynesian Airlines.
Photo: 123rf
Transcript
TIPI AUTAGAVAIA: The Prime Minister has told the media on his radio programme saying that with so many complaints about the increase in fares, local hotels are not happy with the flow of tourists coming in to the country because of the airline's not good service. So I understand with the 10 years of this joint venture, I think the government has learned a lot from their previous mistakes of running Polynesian Airlines. And so hopefully, if they are now deciding to have their own airline back, I hope that they are going to put the right people there to run the airline to make sure the country's public coffer is not going to end up in the drain.
SARA VUI-TALITU: So what has been the reaction on the ground to the news?
TA: Well not so much reactions from the public as a whole, but it was just the commercial hub in Apia where all this information is circulating and where you can hear people in bars talking about the airline and the government's decision to finish the joint venture and bring back the national airline. So there are still people [who] are still very concerned where in previous years the government had been involved in fronting Polynesian Airlines because of millions of millions of tala going into paying debts and running the airline but it was never into making any profit. And so I think that the concern now is that the country is going to experience another [or] more years of financial problems of running the airline. I hope that the government this time has learned a lot of good lessons from the past mistakes to put people there to run the national airline.
SV: Any other details you can tell us?
TA: I am pretty sure that it is good to have our own airline for our own people because having our own airline, and airline that will understand the need of our own people and financial constraints faced by our people, I think that is an important thing for having our own airline but as I said we should have the right people to run the airline if that is the decision by government.
SV: Can you give us a little bit more background about Polynesian?
TA: The Polynesian Airlines was operating flights from here to Auckland and it used to go to Wellington and like to Sydney. And also remember there was a time we had leased two Boeing aircraft, and one was making flights from here to Hawaii and LA. That was the time when the airline was really,really in a lot of financial mess.
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