Consumer Council Questions Air Pacific

Consumer Council Questions Air Pacific
www.fijivillage.com - 10/06/2008

The Consumer Council of Fiji has questioned the International carrier, Air Pacific on why it has decided to increase the air fares from Fiji to Australia and New Zealand when it is making a record profit of 38.2 million dollars.Council CEO Premila Kumar said a record profit of such an amount was made despite being faced with numerous hurdles last year including rising oil prices and the grounding and rescheduling of a number of flight disruptions at peak season.She said Air Pacific together with Expedia is running huge promotions overseas to lure tourists to Fiji by offering great incentives and discounts while the local consumers get nothing in return.Kumar's comments come after Air Pacific announced that it can no longer sustain current fare levels with the price of fuel reaching record highs thus it will increase its fares from Fiji to Australia and New Zealand by approximately 4% for tickets issued from tomorrow.Chief Executive Officer John Campbell has confirmed the hike saying that this is no surprise move, even though the airline has effective internal cost management and fuel hedging. Despite numerous attempts, Campbell has not made any other comment to our queries. Air Pacific operates 22 services weekly to the Australian cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne as well as services to Auckland twice daily and to Christchurch twice weekly.