14 Nov 2006

Fiji's Air Pacific wins court battle for domestic services

10:40 am on 14 November 2006

Fiji's international airline Air Pacific has won a court battle to begin domestic operations.

In May, Air Fiji had challenged Air Pacific's plans to start domestic services on several grounds including breach of a 1971 agreement when Air Pacific went international, and a breach of the Fair Trading Act.

The High Court placed an injunction restricting Air Pacific from starting domestic flights until further notice and from buying out another domestic airline, Sun Air.

But the Fiji Court of Appeal has overturned that injunction saying an agreement preventing Air Pacific from competing with Air Fiji in perpetuity could not be regarded as reasonable and was contrary to current concepts of legitimate competition.

Air Pacific will trade domestically under the name of Fiji Airlines Limited, and has bought two ATR-42 aircraft for this service.