I woke up in Tauranga today reading this line on a few social media posts. Our people are lamenting about the cost of airfares direct to Samoa, particularly in the case of Air New Zealand.

Well, I paid NZD$4433.40 for my 5-year-old and I for this trip (Apia to Auckland return) and another NZD$400 return fare from Auckland to Tauranga, a forty minute flight. If you are paying this much, you might as well fly business class.

Airfares are at an all-time high and monopoly at its best. We have Fiji Airways that is a bit cheaper but if you are traveling with young children or grandparents, I will not be choosing that option. Leaving one plane waiting for another costs time and money in my case, best to fly direct.

When I went to Fiji a couple of weeks ago, it took ground handling services almost two hours to locate my bag as they do not offer a transfer baggage service for domestic flights from Nadi to Suva. Two hours waiting for a bag, what a hassle but thankfully it wasn’t a three day wait for clothes.

For three adults and my kid, return flights between now and the end of December on business class is about NZD$10,000 and the premium isn’t that far behind. Economy class tickets aren’t ‘cheap’, they are far dearer than they were before COVID and some even the same cost or more expensive as flying to Europe, Singapore or Japan. This is what happens when we are at the mercy of others and have no national carrier of our own.

One friend suggested that if “every Samoan around the world or non-Samoan person who wanted to donate, put money together to get our airline back up and running or pay off any debts, could this work? Why not fundraise for airlines?

Put the right people who are honest and non-corruptible in charge. A board made up of leaders of churches, or nuns or the heads of state and include some young people too, just find the wholesome non-biased people to head the campaign and gather the donations. Our own airline is owned by the people. Imagine how many Samoans would help to make travel back home affordable”.

I admire her thoughts and optimism, no doubt shared by many. I replied and said that these are awesome thoughts. However, Samoa being a dot and a small player will always struggle with a natural carrier unless we code-share with other bigger players or move Samoa closer to our biggest markets, New Zealand and Australia. Fiji being the best example has built itself up to be an amazing, profitable hub and evident in the number of visitors they receive annually in addition to all other factors including hotels, competitive prices, tourist packages and products offered.

I predicted Samoa Airways going belly up three to six months into operations because those are the very factors. Operational and fuel costs alone will bankrupt any airline and mismanagement of resources but that’s just me putting on my aviation specialist hat. Ader studying aviation for 20 years, I know a thing or two about the air transport industry.

Air transport is not an airline-to-airline matter, it is a government to government, state to state matter. Without the right air services agreement in place well before the first flight among many favourable conditions, we will forever be at the mercy of others and Air New Zealand knows we have no other choice.

Donations are great but we will need at least a $100 million dollars and I mean dollars or more to buy and own our own fleet because we need more than just one plane, flight crews in different locations. Then another $100m just to keep it floating for a bit. The logistics are far more complicated than throwing a metal box with wings in the sky and filling it with bums so to speak. Samoa simply doesn’t have enough people traveling to and fro to sustain a national carrier right now. Things may change but it won’t change in the next month. Enjoy the rest of the week Samoa.