problems

Vanuatu's national carrier is facing staff shortages, and allegations of poor management have been aimed at its CEO, according to RNZ Pacific's correspondent in the country.

Hilaire Bule said more than 15,000 people were travelling during the Christmas and New Year period and most of them were forced to travel by boat due to issues at the airline.

Bule said he himself experienced the flight cancellation due to a shortage of pilots.

The firm said it had inadvertently made an alarm feature optional instead of standard, but insisted that this did not jeopardise flight safety.

All 737 Max planes were grounded in March after an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed, killing 157 people.

Five months earlier, 189 people were killed in a Lion Air crash.

The worldwide fleet of 737 Max planes totalled 387 aircraft at the time of the grounding.