Air Pacific bumps up capacity to Australia

[Stefan Perkas]

Fiji’s national carrier, Air Pacific, today announced it will update its f leet and expand its
Australian offering in a bid to boost capacity to the thriving island nation.

Air Pacific will add another B737-800 this November and retire its vintage B767-300ER by
mid January 2012 as the carrier moves to boost capacity for the booming number of Australian travellers.

It will also ramp up its weekly Sydney flights from seven to 13 to allow same-day connections from Nadi Airport to Fiji’s smaller islands.New flights to Sydney will
now depart Nadi every day before returning to Fiji the next day. The changes come as inbound tourist numbers to Fiji continue to soar.

More than 27,000 Australians visited the island in April alone, marking a 27.6% increase on the same time last year. Australian tourist numbers also rose by 9.4% in the past four months to 85,802, while approximately 320,000 Australians visited in 2011.

With the changes to “significantly” increase capacity from Australia to Fiji, Air Pacific managing director, Dave Pflieger said the move will allow the carrier to accomodate for the growing market. “Our fleet and 2012 schedule changes will create a much more efficient and effective network,” he said. "Overall, it will make much travel much more
convenient, which is an essential part of our plan to create a better airline for our customers.”

Tickets for AirPacific’s new schedules will be available from Wednesday, July 20.

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