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This Post Courier letter is an attempt by an uninformed individual in PNG to once again smear Air Niugini using misinformation. His last post described the 4, F100 parked and not flying in POM, these are actually F28-4000 aircraft which have been retired, two of which are being parted out.
The writer goes on to criticise the 757 and use of this aircraft for a new route to Malaysia, evidently he finds the 757 an easy target as now the problem is Iceland which he evidently does not understand is different from IceLand Air.
I can think of a number of countries that found it necessary to extend financial assiistance for the banking industry recently, USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia are on the list so Iceland with a population about the same as POM should not be much to talk about.
In any case Iceland Air is to the best of my knowledge a leading ACMI operator with a significant fleet. They have retrenched 140 flight crew recently as they move more to Dry leasing, more than one of their pilots has hired on at PX.
PX is training crew for the 757 (F100 pilots moving up)and will most likely crew this aircraft and register her P2 this year, something which is good value for pilots and employment opportunities in PNG.
The Dreamliner is not arriving in 2010 and I am not sure who ever announced it was, the slot is for 2015, and there is an initiative to purchase a different slot earlied but as you can imagine these early slots are not easy to get. Boeing is buying any slot available to lessen their delays.
I think rumour mongering about an aircraft so far into the future is silly when we have so many real time targets.
The recent ATC problems are a new low in PNG.
CAA CEO apologized recently for the ATC strike, unfortunately the Minister for transport was in Manila at the time.