Attempts by Samoa Airways to breath some life back into air travel to Savaii has stuttered to a stop even before it took to air.
“Low customer demand’ has forced the national carrier to ‘postpone scheduled flight services to Savai’i as from last Friday 11 September 2020 until 5 October 2020.’
The revival of domestic flights between the two islands was scheduled to take off with the first trip on the 28th August 2020.
Both the airline CEO and its Commercial Manger tried to fire up public “hopes to support the tourism industry in Savaii and the Government commitment for local travel.”
“The current pandemic does see us pushing local tourism harder; however, the operation sets the base for Savai’i to be market ready when borders do open up,” Commercial manager Robert Rounds said at the outset.
But shorty afterwards the scheduled timing of the first flight from the 28th August was moved forward two weeks to the 11 of September 2020, which was last Friday.
The delay was to allow the carrier to upgrade” ‘our reservation systems which will enhance our booking services to all our customers.”
The new scheduled flight time was called off yet again.
Samoa Airways issued a new press statement last Friday to ‘regrettably… postpone scheduled flight services to Savai’i from today 11th September until Monday 5th October due to low customer demand for these flights at this time.”
“The airline looks to now launch these services on Friday 9th October with the possibility of additional services for the White Sunday long weekend,” the statement further added.
