Air Vanuatu loses IATA Membership, affects codesharing arrangements

The codeshare arrangements Air Vanuatu shares with three international carriers are likely to be affected now that the national carrier of the Republic of Vanuatu has lost its membership of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The airlines are Australia’s Qantas, Air New Zealand and Fiji Airways.

Air Vanuatu’s Chief Executive Officer, Joseph Laloyer, has confirmed this situation and explained that when an airline loses its International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certification process, this automatically affects its membership of IATA, the trade association representing and serving the airline industry world-wide.

Losing membership of IATA means an airline also loses its codeshare arrangements with airlines that are members of the international air transport association.

Laloyer had announced Friday that Air Vanuatu had temporally suspended its IOSA certification process. He explained that the Government had supported the decision to temporarily suspend the company’s IOSA certification process, which is part of a major restructuring of the national carrier that will go ahead in 2016 with the assistance of international aviation experts.

CEO Laloyer said they had notified the three airlines of Air Vanuatu’s position and that it was now up to Qantas and Air New Zealand to decide to when and whether to cease their codeshare arrangements with Air Vanuatu.

He explained that the loss of IATA membership only affected codeshares on outbound flights which Air Vanuatu shared with Qantas and Air New Zealand.

“Air Fiji is not affected because the codeshare with the airline is only on inbound flights.”

The Air Vanuatu CEO added that the codeshares with Air New Guinea is also not affected.

“We have appointed the world’s leading IATA-accredited IOSA audit organization, Aviation Quality Services GmbH (AQS) to lead the restructuring program,” Laloyer said.

The company restructure will focus on international operations, strengthening the airline and enabling it to be capable of achieving IOSA re-registration.

Laloyer promised the restructure would have minimal effect on passenger numbers in 2016 as the airline is committed to working with industry partners including Vanuatu Tourism Office (VTO) and hotel partners to increase visitor numbers to Vanuatu.

SOURCE: VANUATU DAILY POST