The Cook Islands government is for now sticking with underwriting costs for a direct flight route from Sydney to Rarotonga, although the service is currently losing money.
The government is negotiating a new contract with Air New Zealand, which will continue to provide flights to Rarotonga from Los Angeles and Sydney.
It's likely the agreement will require the government to cover the costs, and guarantee the airline a profit, on both routes.
An economic advisor at the ministry of finance, James Webb, says the government has budgeted for this, and has also evaluated both services to make sure they're contributing to the economy above the investment made.
"What we've found overall was that Los Angeles and Raro added to the economy and the Sydney route was a small negative. The question that we wanna answer is, is the investment - that cost that the government bears - does that return dividends to the economy and to local businesses and to people living here? For Sydney it's almost a line-ball, it's a little bit negative, not a lot, so I guess we're giving it another throw of the dice for want of a better term, to see if it improves because Australia has been a huge growth market for us."
James Webb says it's likely that the costs of underwriting the Sydney route will come down.
