Island states in the South Pacific rely heavily on each other to maintain vital connectivity, particularly during natural disasters or health emergencies.
Their airlines do the same, as evidenced by last week's cooperation between Solomon Airlines and Air Vanuatu.
On April 26th, Solomon Airlines confirmed its latest cooperation with a close neighbor, Air Vanuatu, establishing a new wet lease arrangement. The wet lease agreement will see Solomon Airlines operating a third frequency between Port Vila, Vanuatu and Auckland, New Zealand, for Air Vanuatu.
The service will depart Port Vila Bauerfield International Airport (VLI) on Mondays, with the return services from Auckland International Airport (AKL) to Port Vila on Tuesdays. The wet lease service will complement Air Vanuatu's existing Wednesday and Saturday services from Port Vila to Auckland.
The new schedule is timed for easy travel from Solomon Island's capital, Honiara, to Auckland via Port Vila. This will restart Solomon Airlines' services to Auckland from Honiara International Airport (HIR), with both airlines discussing a codeshare operation on the route.
The new agreement will also see Air Vanuatu restart direct flights on Thursday between Australia's Brisbane Airport (BNE) and Santo International Airport (SON) in Vanuatu, with the new route to be also operated by Solomon Airlines.
Solomon Airlines (Solomons) already has a De Havilland DHC-6-300 Twin Otter on wet lease to Air Vanuatu, which operates short inter-island services. This leaves Solomons with four aircraft, including one Airbus A320-200, one De Havilland DHC-8-100 and two Twin Otters. The domestic arrangement with the Twin Otter is now being extended into international services with the Airbus A320-200.
Air Vanuatu CEO Joseph Laloyer said the airline is very encouraged to embark on this new venture with Solomon Airlines and build on their long-established collaboration and friendship. He added:
"We are national carriers with similar responsibilities and aims, we are of similar size corporate size, and we are experiencing the same challenges to sustain our operations. With the learnings of the COVID pandemic, the realisation is even greater that cooperation in our region is crucial to the survival of both airlines."
In early March, Vanuatu was battered by two Category 4 cyclones within 72 hours, with full recovery from the disaster expected to take years. Compounding Air Vanuatu's woes was that its only 737-800, YJ-AV8, was marooned in Brisbane between March 31st and April 14th due to a technical issue. During that time, another Pacific airline, Nauru Airlines, helped maintain connections between Vanuatu and Australia.
Perhaps that cooperation is behind the Air Vanuatu - Solomons new agreement, as Laloyer said, "engaging each other to support more robust and efficient operations is a very sound strategy and is vital in the new operating environment."
Despite the announcement coming from Solomon Airlines, their CEO, Gus Kraus, did not have much to say at all. He commented that the new agreement paves the way for the two airlines to help each other while maintaining their independence and roles as national carriers. "We are helping our neighbours, and we're both benefitting, it is only the beginning of opportunities that we can create by leveraging each other's capabilities."