Pacific Adventures, or: How many Fleet Managers does it need to operate a single aircraft?
The southern Pacific region always risks being underserved by the AS community. Fiji, as the most viable country in the region, hasn’t had an airline for ages. No airline holding French traffic rights could be bothered to put up an airline in French Polynesia or New Caledonia either.
So it’s time for the countries open to investment to shine. Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have had successful subsidiaries of globally operating airlines for a while now. Papua Jet, a Winnipeg Jet subsidiary, is the longest serving airline in the region and, after the collapse of neighbouring Fly Indo, has received an increasingly more important role in connecting East Asia with Oceania.
Speaking of Fly Indo, its subsidiary Fly Samoa held a unique position in Polynesia. Luckily, its operations have been taken over by a new airline in the Winnipeg Jet Group - Samoa Jet. Not only does Samoa Jet provide essential services to the region, it also serves as a testament to the Airbus A321LR and its range, which allows for cost-efficient transpacific services to the US, New Zealand and Australia.
Unfortunately, one of Samoa Jet’s routes has proven to be unsuccessful; The residents of its neighbour country Tuvalu couldn’t be convinced to take a flight. Tuvaluans have only one destination in mind, which is the Fiji Islands, and connecting flights via Samoa would have distance too long to be considered. Most airline entepreneurs would ignore this and focus on other routes.
Proud of not being one of “most airline entrepreneurs”, there had to be a solution. So, Tuvalu Jet was born! A single Do 228 which operates the routes from Funafuti, Tuvalu to Nadi and Suva, Fiji Islands. This could be considered as the smallest viable airline in the game… Essential services for Tuvalu and its 11,000 residents are provided, and 41 jobs have been created as well. How does it need 41 people to operate a single aircraft, one might wonder.
Most positions should be pretty straight forward, but… 22 fleet managers?! What are they doing all day? Or should we just be happy for those 22 for having gained a very relaxed job?
Check out our little Pacific Endeavours here: