Solomon Airlines has announced an increase of 19 per cent on its Domestic route.
A statement from the airline says the increase was previously approved by the Air Transport Licensing Authority, ATLA, but withheld until 2009.In its initial announcement of the increase in airfares earlier this year, Solomon Airlines indicated a vast disparity within the region on Domestic fares and together with its submission to ATLA, received a 40 per cent fare increase.
The Airlines then determined that it would work with the new board to apply some internal controls and thereby defer the full impact of the increase to a later date, which was implied as early 2009 would be the time thus not impacting on Christmas travels.
The airline said that most of the public would have already paid for their return travel and therefore, an early January start of the increase would have the least impact on those returning travellers.
The airline says that as a comparison, and after the past increases, Solomon Airlines increases is still the cheapest compared to other national airlines in the region.
The increase will be effective from January the 5th for Travels on or after that date unless already purchased.
In addition, the airline said that the Dash8 introduction will come at a great cost but believed that it could manage the introduction and running costs, and this increase would assist to ease the burden.
Source: SIBC News