Dear Editor,

Re: Govt drops Virgin 

My reading of this article is that we, the travelling public, have the choice between the government not receiving the dividend payments or the passengers continuing to have access to cheaper fares. 

I know that the government has chosen the dividend route because that is revenue for them, but what about us, members of the public? 

The alleged collusion between Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia, as part of the reason for cessation, is weak to say the least. 

Virgin Australia’s move is part of international business mergers and partnerships.

 Air NZ is in partnership with Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific amongst others while Virgin Australia is in partnership with Nippon Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America and others. 

It is relatively difficult to operate on some routes without code sharing.

Are we going to be happy about the cessation of Virgin’s services?

I, for one, remember with fondness (NOT!!!) the good old days of Polynesian airlines, which was characterised by high fares and poor services. 

Love listening at the makeki to people telling their stories about Polynesian flights which were either late or never turned up, and being stuck at airports like Faleolo, Nadi, Auckland or Sydney. 

Running Polynesian airlines Mark I was a classic study of how not to run an airline - amongst the problems was late or non collection of debts which were subsequently written off, etc, etc. 

But here we are again, jumping into the international pool of international airline management. 

I can now confidently predict that my relatives in Australia who have been regular visitors at our home, will stay from visiting because of the anticipated steep rises in air fares when Polynesian Mark II takes off.

Fiji Airways will reap unexpected benefits from the new arrangement due to their fares from Sydney to Apia (and return) being cheaper than on our beloved airline. I hope I am wrong but somehow I don’t think so.

Some brilliant laui’a somewhere in the government has crunched the numbers and advised the government of the clear and unambiguous benefits of ceasing the arrangements with Virgin Australia. 

Why does he or she care? They (him/her and government mates) will continue to hop around the globe on government paid airfares while ordinary folks like me will begrudgingly pay my exorbitant new air fare. Why?

Vai Autu