Qantas seeks sale of Air Pacific shares

September 09, 2009 06:39:15 PM

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Qantas is seeking to sell its 46 per cent take in Fiji's national carrier Air Pacific.

Australia’s biggest airline plans to block the planned expansion on the route to Fiji of its main domestic rival Virgin Blue Holdings Ltd.

It is lobbying for capacity to introduce Jetstar flights to the holiday island.

According to The Australian, Qantas has confirmed it is in talks with the Fijian government, which holds majority share in Air Pacific.

“"While that's at very early stages, we can now confirm that the continuation of the shareholding is formally under review,” Qantas spokesman David Epstein confirmed to the newspaper.

Epstein said talks with the Fijian government had mapped out a possible way forward but there would need to be agreement on valuation procedures before there was a commercial conversation.

This included maintaining commercial arrangements with the Fijian flag-carrier.

Fiji government spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Neumi Leweni told FijiLive he could not confirm the talks at this stage.

Qantas brought forward its plans to introduce Jetstar on the route after Virgin Blue applied for an additional 1260 seats and to transfer another 1260 from Pacific Blue to allow it to operate V Australia's 360-seat Boeing 777-300ERs on the route.

Jetstar plans to start daily services between Sydney and Nadi using 213-seat Airbus A321 aircraft from next April.