Air Fiji and its sister carrier Airlines Tonga are continuing to suspend services with the Fijian carrier involved in a dispute with its workforce and the Tongan carrier involved in protracted negotiations with its fuel supplier.
Today's flights have all been cancelled and yesterday there were only a few flights using one Britten-Norman Islander, says an official in Air Fiji's headquarters, who wishes to remain anonymous.
The official was unable to say when operations will resume to normal again and referred questions on this matter to the airline's head of human resources who was not immediately available for comment.
Another official at Air Fiji told Flight's sister premium news affiliate ATI on the 25 August that the grounding was due to a dispute the airline has with its workforce.
Some local news reports say the airline is trying to get the workforce to accept a wage cut and the out-sourcing of some jobs in an effort to cut costs and help the airline financially.
Air Fiji has been grounded since the 23 August with the exception of a few Islander aircraft flights. This aircraft type is normally used to serve the more remote parts of the country. Besides Islanders, Air Fiji operates Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante and Harbin Y12 aircraft.
The carrier is also a joint venture partner in Airlines Tonga, which has grounded some of its operations as a result of a separate issue.
Airlines Tonga CEO, Malakai Nawai, says the airline no longer has an Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante and its Harbin Y12 has been grounded for about a week.
This means the airline currently only has in operation a Convair 580, says Malakai, referring to an aircraft Airlines Tonga leases from New Zealand carrier Air Chathams.
Airlines Tonga has grounded some operations because "there is a contractual agreement [with our fuel supplier that ] we are trying to rectify right now", says Malakai.
Hopefully the matter will be resolved quickly so the Y12 can return to service tomorrow, he adds.
The Y12 is used for services to the northern islands of Tonga.
Malakai told ATI in May the airline planned to add an ATR 42-300 on lease from Singapore firm Phoenix Aircraft Leasing to replace the Convair 580.
He says today this is still the case and that "we are working on it with Phoenix and probably end of this month or beginning of next month" the aircraft will be delivered to Tonga.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
