Been doing some more research given that Ozjet have been operating a couple of charters for Solomons Airlines (as have OUR Airline, as a matter of interest) and seeing
OzJet's chief executive officer Willie O'Neill said his company was in discussions with Solomon Airlines to "rebuild their schedule".
Sal-E has it in one, the 737-200 isn't the best replacement for the E-170. It certainly offers some improvement in payload by about 2 - 2.5 tonnes which only brings the loads up to around what they thought the E-170 was going to carry but at greater cost overall. Still leaves no real scope for expansion other than increases in frequency - expensive!! IE really need to look at the situation and, whilst national pride is very important, it needs to be cast aside in the interests of the best possible outcome for the Solomonese, particularly, and the passengers, generally. The wrong decision will see ticket prices higher than they need be - ask the passengers travelling to/from Tarawa and Nandi, fares about double what they were when Air Nauru operated. It's time some sort of alliance developed between interested (island nation) parties that would bring results (profits) to those parties. Engaging the services of yet another external operator along the lines of the deal with the E-170 will only bring about similar results as have just emerged. It's merely changing horses midstream if they do that - simple. Incidentally, did IE conduct "due diligence" when they were assessing the contract/payload/viability etc? It would appear it wasn't too thorough. They now have the chance to finally get it right - hope the chance isn't wasted.