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Fiji’s international airline Air Pacific Ltd has delayed its purchase of eight Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft that was estimated to cost a total of $2.4 billion.
Airline managing director and chief executive John Campbell confirmed this to FijiLive saying this was a result of the delay in delivery from Boeing.
The delay is a result of Boeing’s announcement of reductions in the production rate at its wide body jet assembly plant in Everett, after it began to feel the pinch of the unfolding cash crisis.
This move was said to have hit both local employment and company profits.
Campbell said the original planned delivery for the first five aircraft was 2012/13 but had now been put back to 2014/15.
He said the airline still intended to take delivery of these aircraft and use them to replace the current two leased B747-400 and one B767-300 aircraft.
“Air Pacific has already made arrangements to extend the leases of those aircraft from the original planned exit in 2012/13 to the revised timeframe of 2014/15,” Campbell said.
“As part of that consideration, we have put the B747’s through a major maintenance and refreshment programme with the second aircraft just completing this programme in April 2009. The B767 aircraft will go through a refreshment programme in either October or November 2009 or February 2010 with the details currently being worked on,” he said.
Campbell said the B787 Dreamliner aircraft would have a seating capacity of 320 persons with fuel efficiency benefits versus the current aircraft to the order of 20 per cent less fuel burn per passenger, while offering increased range allowing Air Pacific to fly to more points non-stop with greatly enhanced passenger comfort and entertainment facilities.
He said the design and technical features of the aircraft would deliver significant maintenance savings resulting in reduced operating costs, increased time between heavy maintenance checks and generally lower spare part and component costs for the aircraft.
“Overall, the delay in delivery of the B787 Dreamliners is causing Air Pacific a significant increase in costs through the necessity to refresh and provide heavy maintenance for the B747 and B767 aircrafts, and our inability to gain operating savings from the B787 aircraft for a further two years,” Campbell said.
“Offsetting that to some extent is the fact that with the downturn in business and the devaluation of the Fiji dollar, our costs have risen and cash flows are challenged so not having to pay for aircraft deliveries at this time does provide a degree of relief,” he said.
Meanwhile, Campbell said the airline’s three B737 aircraft are scheduled for heavy maintenance checks between April and August with each aircraft taking about six weeks.
He said the current downturn in travel to Fiji was producing about 25 per cent less travellers than the same period last year and we have reduced our flying to more closely match demand.
“As a consequence, we are able to maintain our schedules and seat capacity to and from Fiji while accommodating each B737’s release from service on a back to back basis over a five month period.”
