Samoa Airways will be flying to Hawaii by the end of 2020 as part of its expansion strategic plans.
This was revealed by Minister of Public Enterprises, Lautafi Selafi Purcell in a video interview posted on the Samoa Government’s Facebook page.
The minister spoke of government’s frustration over a decade old code sharing agreement between Fiji Airways and Samoa’s national airline which finally led to the Samoa Cabinet agreeing to close down the Fiji to Samoa route.
“Their continued refusal to hold talks was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said.
Lautafi said a Samoa Airways delegation led by himself, recently met with a team from Fiji Airways to iron out the wrinkles in the code sharing deal.
“This is our route, our air space, and we are not getting any income from this at all, so we want to change that,” he said.
He said Fiji Airways have started to play ball and Samoa Airways is working on upgrading their system to be compatible with Fiji Airways’ system making it possible to move on with the code sharing agreement.
“We want to see this up and running by the beginning of April,” said Lautafi.
He added that Samoa Airways is looking at acquiring an ATR plane which would suit the Samoa to Fiji route.
On the Samoa to Hawaii route, Lautafi says the route belongs to Samoa and Fiji Airways has been using it without any return for the Samoa Government.
“We will take that over by the end of the year and then fly from Auckland via Tonga and Apia to Hawaii and back,” he said.
