Fiji Airways lost more than 90,000 passengers to Qantas in 2019 - Andre Viljoen

Fiji Airways Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Andre Viljoen says despite the 2% increase in passenger numbers in 2019, they have lost more than 90,000 passengers to Qantas.

Viljoen says the increased passenger numbers by 2% is 1.7 million passengers compared to 1.67 million the year before.

Viljoen says in mid-2019, Fiji Airways was looking at forecasting a loss of $100 million from the profit of the year before of $50 million.

He says the negative forecast was created because the fuel prices continued to increase and cost another $29 million for the year and the impact of Qantas taking on the Sydney-Nadi route direct flights that resulted in loss of code-shared passengers which was estimated to be $65 million.

Viljoen says Qantas should be giving a lot of support to Fiji Airways as a strategic partner with a big shareholding.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says they are the only shareholder that has stepped forward for Fiji Airways.

Sayed-Khaiyum says they believe there is enough room for Fiji Airways to continue with the funding that they have requested to guarantee over and they will carry that for a period of time.

He says they are looking at the travel bubble as a holistic approach to create the robustness with the economy.

Fiji Airways has made a $61.2 million before tax profit in the year ending 31st December 2019 compared to $55.3M in the 2018 financial year.