Fiji Airways will suspend all international flights until the end of May, with the exception of twice-weekly services between Singapore and Nadi.

This is a 95% reduction in flights which has resulted in the airline implementing Leave Without Pay of four weeks between April and June for all employees.

All senior management are taking a 35% pay cut.

Fiji Airways will operate one flight out of Nadi to Sydney today and another on Sunday.

This route will then be suspended.

The airline will also fly once to Los Angeles today and Sunday with the last flight out of Los Angeles to reach Fiji on 24th March, before suspending the service.

Fiji Airways will operate the last return Auckland-Nadi service on Sunday 22nd March.

The final South Pacific return services between Nadi or Suva and Nuku’alofa, Honiara and Funafuti will operate today while the final Nadi – Honolulu flight will operate on Sunday 22nd March with the return on Monday.

Return services between Nadi and Brisbane, Melbourne, Christchurch, Wellington, Hong Kong, Tokyo (Narita), Apia, Tarawa, Christmas Island (Kiritimati), Vava’u, San Francisco are suspended immediately.

Return services between Suva and Sydney, Auckland and Port Vila, along with services between Apia-Honolulu and Christmas Island (Kiritimati)-Honolulu are also suspended with immediate effect.

The suspensions are in place until the end of May and maybe extended further if travel restrictions remain in place.

Fiji Airways will mount one-off recovery flights to allow citizens/residents to return home or to their point of origin.

Recovery services to/from Tokyo (Narita) and Hong Kong are planned for March 27 and March 29 respectively.

The airline will be running some supplementary recovery flights to Auckland, Sydney and Los Angeles for any remaining passengers wanting to get back to their countries, as well as bring back home any Fijian nationals still in those cities.

These supplementary flight schedules are: 

Civil Aviation Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says Fiji Airways had to make tough decisions due to the reduced passenger numbers as a result of the global travel restrictions.

“These are very dramatic times, very demanding times not just from an HR perspective, from a corporate governance perspective but also from a financial perspective too.”

Fiji Airways Managing Director Andre Viljoen says these are necessary measures to navigate through the crisis as global border control measures make it nearly impossible to continue scheduled operations.

Viljoen says the airline will work with all staff and employee organisations, in re-assessing manpower requirements in light of suspension.

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