air services

Vanuatu Prime Minister Bob Loughman has asked Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni to sign an air services agreement.

Loughman said such an agreement could come into effect in a “post Covid” world.

Vanuatu’s Covid travel restrictions will be lifted on 1 July.

Loughman said the proposal would entail a “a win-win for our national airlines and governments, post-COVID.”

Such an agreement would allow Air Vanuatu to ensure that fares between the two Island nations, Australia and New Zealand would remain stable.

Flights to Lajmoli were suspended in 2007 and the only way to reach the area is by copra boat or speed boat which takes six hours from the city of Luganville.

The chief, Seni Mao Tirsupe, who is also the chair of the Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs, said when a patient from his region urgently needed medical treatment in Luganville Hospital the only solution was death.

He told the Daily Post that a young mother lost her new born baby last month because it took too long to get them to hospital by boat.