Northern Air hits hurdles

RACHNA LAL
SUVA

Northern Air operator, Rainjesh San, has raised concerns claiming restrictions have been introduced by Airports Fiji Limited. These prevents them from flying into Savusavu, Taveuni and Rotuma using their refurbished Embraer Bandeirant, he said.
Captain San stressed the Bandeirante is the same aircraft which used to be previously used by Air Fiji flying these routes.
Therefore, he has called on Airports Fiji to explain as to why they are being allowed to only fly between Nadi, Labasa and Suva.
Airports Fiji Limited executive chairman, Faiz Khan, however, said Airports Fiji has not stopped the Bandeirante flying to these airports.
Mr Khan said when any airline needs to fly to a particular destination, AFL has to do its safety case and submit this to the airline operator.
“In this instance, AFL has submitted its safety case to Northern Air on June 20,” he said.
“Northern Air needs to respond but has not done so. Northern Air needs to submit their response.”

The restrictions
Captain san said when Air Fiji was using this aircraft to Taveuni and Savusavu before, there were just operational conditions but they were nothing major.
“This was basically limited based on the ambient condition of the day which would mean there was performance limitation,” he said.
“But there was no way Air Fiji wasn’t operating to these places.
“Airports Fiji is saying it is only restricted to category 3 aircraft. My aircraft is also category 3. They will allow a Twin Otter but they will not allow my aircraft which is a category 3 as well.”

CAAF ready
Meanwhile, on a more positive note, Captain San said he has received confirmation from the Civil Aviation Authority of Fiji that they are ready to put the Embraer Bandeirante under commercial register.
“What we are doing now is we are going to pursue further with the flight operations department of CAAF to make sure we meet all the requirements and we get them to send approvals of our manuals,” he said.
“We have submitted all the manuals and now we need to get approvals to make sure they accept all our conditions that we have given them.
“If they are happy, then only we can operate commercially. The ball just started rolling. After all the effort we made previously, they were looking into it and I believe we have made headway now.”
Captain San was hoping to begin using the Embraer Bandeirante the past month, but given the delays, he is expected to start servicing the routes soon.
Currently, Northern Air is operating to Labasa and other routes with an eight seater Britten Norma Islander.
Feedback: rachnal@fijisun.com.fj