Several small Pacific island nations are considering becoming formal stakeholders in Nauru’s national carrier Our Airline, which was formerly called Air Nauru but re-launched late last year with financial assistance from Taiwan.
At the end of this month the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu will decide whether to begin the process of becoming stakeholders in the carrier, Our Airline chief executive Geoffrey Bowmaker says from the airline’s operational base in Brisbane, Australia.
Senior representatives from these countries met in mid-December in Majuro, the Marshall Islands, to discuss the matter and it was Nauru’s transport minister Kieren Keke who floated the idea that some Micronesian and Melanesian island nations should consider coming into the Our Airline fold, confirms Bowmaker.
He says that prior to December’s meeting, the Nauruan government, which is the airline’s sole owner, considered the matter closely and requested that the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), a privately owned aviation consultancy in Sydney, prepare a report examining how Our Airline could be turned into a pan-regional carrier serving the Pacific.
The rationale behind Nauru’s proposal is that “it is a better economic proposition and that a group [of countries] can create more than small individual countries trying their own thing”, says Bowmaker.
“It is much better to…share infrastructure and services,” he adds.
If all the countries represented at the December meeting decide to join Our Airline the carrier will need a second aircraft, says Bowmaker.
Our Airline currently only has one aircraft, a Boeing 737-300 that Taiwan helped the Nauru government purchase.
In last year’s second half, the carrier changed its name from Air Nauru to Our Airline and today it operates passenger services from Brisbane in Australia to Nauru as well as to the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Nauru and Kiribati.
Taiwan’s involvement is significant because, with the exception of Micronesia, all the countries represented at the December meeting recognise Taiwan as the Republic of China, rather than the People's Republic of China and receive financial assistance from Taipei as a result.
If these countries join Our Airline it will effectively strengthen Taiwan’s position in the South Pacific, the last remaining region of the world where China’s power and influence has so far failed to eclipse Taiwan’s.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
