The long queue in front of Fiji Airways office in Suva.

Economy and Aviation Minister says Fiji Airways is facing its most stringent operations scale back in its 68-year history.

In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, he announced last night that there will be a 95 percent reduction in flights until the end of the May.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says work is now underway to schedule repatriation flights in the coming days.

“Fiji Airways is working closely with foreign embassies and governments to arrange for one-off repatriation flights to and from Sydney, Auckland, Los Angles, Tokyo and Hong Kong to allow foreign nationals to safely return home and permit Fijian citizens living abroad to return to Fiji.”

The Minister reiterated that there are stringent border control measures in place to ensure Fiji keeps any other COVID-19 infections away which will be followed to the letter.

“All passengers including all Fijians arriving from overseas destinations as announced by the Honorable Prime Minister will be screened prior to boarding and medically checked on arrival to Fiji. Upon arrival, these passengers will be required to undergo 14 days of self-quarantine in line with the Fijian government’s sweeping measures to prevent a large scale outbreak of COVID-19 in Fiji.”

Meanwhile, Fiji Airways will operate one flight out of Nadi to Sydney today and tomorrow before this 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 tomorrow, the 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 tomorrow 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 the Minister says are in place until the end of May and maybe extended further if international travel restrictions remain in place in response to containing the spread of coronavirus.

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