23 Aug 2007

Pacific Blue weathers Fiji turmoil

3:19 pm on 23 August 2007

The Australian-based airline, Pacific Blue, says it has not been affected by the tourism downturn in Fiji following last year's coup.

The Fiji flag carrier, Air Pacific, has been reporting lower profitability.

But Pacific Blue's commercial general manager Adrian Hamilton-Manns says political instability has not hit the airline.

"The Fiji issue has actually had no impact on our flights from Australia to Fiji we don't fly there from New Zealand, the political volatility doesn't affect us because we like to play neutral the only issue we do have is of course is trying to get route rights and agreements to be able to fly to these different countries."

Pacific Blue flies to Fiji, Tonga, the Cook Islands and Vanuatu and will start domestic flights in New Zealand in three months.

It also runs Polynesian Blue in conjunction with Samoa.