Hopefully this situation may provide the tongan people with some more motivation (if any is needed) to seriously question the monarchy in their country. The whole system of government there seems to be corrupt in some form. I believe that the CEO of RTA is the King's son who just so happened to go to school with the Sultan of Brunei or his son. So being "mates" one offers the other a 757 to lease (no doubt one that they couldn't find any work for) and no doubt says all those other nations around you will be envious ie Cook's and Samoa. But hold on they couldn't make a 732 work for them so how can they find work for a 757 and sucessfully compete against an airline like Air NZ. But to admit that you made a mistake or were corrupt in your dealings would be to lose face so they plod on and get emergency loans to keep paying the Sultan (who I reckon probably isn't too hard up for cash) for his 757. Another example of the madness going on is the decision to sell the Islander that serviced Eua. At 13 NM away a far better suited aircraft to the route than a Twin Otter but "we must save face we must fly only turbine aircraft". So any way, the whole country ends up going broke just because corrupt royals cannot admit they were not so smart in making some decisions. If they were a little smarter then they might try and get all the nations around them: Fiji Samoa and Cook Is and get some commonality in their fleets and have a parts and engineering pool amongst themselves. 737NG S340s and Otters and Islanders. might make life a little easier on themselves. But then pigs might fly!!!!!