Handing over the certificate to Solomon Airlines, Director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Solomon Islands, Benjamin Kere says the historical Air Operators Certificate is an improvement from the current domestic one.

"The AOC replaces the domestic one and covers all Solomon Airlines operations, both domestic and international. The process Solomon Airlines has undertaken to reach this stage sets them up to reapply to the international air transport association as a full member and I will set them up well from an AOC audit in the near future."

Mr Kere says the Civil Aviation Authority will review the certificate next year with the aim of extending it to a much longer period.

Receiving the certificate on behalf of Solomon Airlines, the operations and commercial service manager, Gus Kraus says the certificate is an important piece of paper certificating the national carrier to operate domestic as well as international flights.

"I think this is a very important piece of certificate and it does actually certify us for the Islander, for the twin otter and for the air bus and our airline systems and eventually when we're actually get our own Dash-8, we'll actually seek to put that on the new certification as well."