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Air Marshall Islands Gets First Plane Airborne After 6 Months
By Giff Johnson in Majuro
Friday: April 25, 2008
A more than six-month drought with no domestic air service in the Marshall Islands ended Thursday with the first commercially scheduled flights by Air Marshall Islands.
Using $1.6 million in special grants from the Republic of China/Taiwan, AMI relaunched its 34-seat Dash-8 that had been grounded since October 10.
The other plane, a 19-seat German built Dornier, has been grounded since mid-August and is unlikely to fly until the end of 2008.
The cut off in domestic services caused tens of thousands of dollars in losses to the Bikini Atoll scuba diving business and the deaths of at least two children for lack of emergency medical evacuation services to remote islands.
AMI's Dash-8 plane conducted a successful test flight on Monday, followed by flights to inspect seven outer island runways to confirm their status prior to resumption of scheduled service this weekend.
"The test flight went really well," AMI general manager Dan Fitzpatrick.
"Things are looking good."
Taiwan provided $1 million in mid-January and another $600,000 earlier this month as part of its support for the new government of President Litokwa Tomeing, who took office in January.
With the Dash-8 grounded for so long, only two captains are currently certified to fly the plane and Fitzpatrick said he is searching for a Dash-8 pilot who can be hired on a short-term contract to help out until two more Air Marshall Islands pilots can be trained for the Dash-8. Fitzpatrick said the two pilots will leave Majuro next week for flight training in Seattle, Washington that is expected to take one month to complete.
Getting the Dash-8 airborne is a start, but the airline is under pressure to get its other aircraft, a 19-seat German-made Dornier 228, back in service. Being a one-plane airline is a huge challenge for an airline located in the western Pacific: when a plane is grounded with mechanical problems it may take weeks to get a part shipped in to resume flights ‹ a problem that Bikini Atoll Divers manager Jack Niedenthal said is a major concern to the business that saw international divers repeatedly stranded at Bikini late last year as Air Marshall Islands planes went out of service.
On two occasions the government had to dispatch its maritime surveillance patrol vessel to make the 36-hour trip to Bikini to pick up stranded divers.
The Dornier needs a major factory overhaul, but canąt be flown off island yet because it is still being repaired and Fitzpatrick is searching for the estimated $1 million or more needed for the overhaul.
Fitzpatrick estimates that it could take up to five months for the major overhaul to be completed and the plane returned for service.
"We're two weeks away from flying the Dornier,˛ Fitzpatrick said.
AMI hasn't yet made a final decision on where the plane will be sent, and is currently getting price quotes from various factories for the overhaul.
He believes that the price tag could range from slightly under $1 million to as high as $1.6 million for the work.
Complicating the picture is that while it is more expensive to do the work in Germany, where the plane was originally manufactured, doing it there reduces time to get parts and technical advice. He noted that more than 15 years ago, when an earlier AMI Dornier was sent to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for similar work, "it took almost seven months to complete. The distance from the factory in Germany complicated the work." |