Passengers stranded in country following the grounding of an Air Fiji plane have now all left Samoa.
Acting Manager of the local Fiji Airways office, Stefan Keil, said the last of the 10 passengers flew home on an extra flight put on by the company last night.
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According to a source, passengers due to travel to Fiji were left marooned in Samoa for two days after a flight from Nadi to Faleolo was forced to turn back.
The Fiji Times reported that the reason for the plane to return to Nadi was that pilots detected an anomaly in one of the aircraft’s engines.
The article quotes the airline’s Managing Director and C.E.O., Stefan Pichler as saying Fiji Airways would not compromise on safety standards and praised the pilots for returning instead of continuing with the flight.
"Last night (Sunday night) at around 2300 hours a Fiji Airways flight FJ 253 bound for Apia, Samoa, from Nadi had an air turn back as a precautionary measure after a slight shift in one of the engine parameters was detected in-flight," Mr Pichler said.
"The parameters were still well within the manufacturers' limits and the captain made the decision to bring the aircraft back to Nadi only as a precaution."
"The aircraft landed safely without incident and all passengers were looked after and are being accommodated in Nadi while our team rebooked them on the next available flight."
The incident came in the wake of another four days ago where fumes inside the cabin of a Boeing 737-800 aircraft forced the pilot of an Auckland flight to make an air turn back 15 minutes outbound from Nadi, the newspaper reports.
Mr. Keil said over the past two days the airline had put on extra flights to fly out those passengers booked on last Sunday’s Fiji Airways flight FJ 253.
He said all passengers were looked after and accommodated until the final travellers departed last night.
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" class="caption" />A motorist who used the new airport parking facilities was concerned to see that the fee included a 19 percent charge for Valued Added Goods and Services Tax (V.A.G.S.T).
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The legislated rate is 15 per cent. The motorist handed in the ticket, above, and asked Samoa Observer to check whether this was accurate.
Questions sent in via email to the Samoa Airport Authority last week were not responded to by press time last night.
However, a clue to the mix up may come from the parking ticket itself. Tickets issued at Faleolo airport still retain the slogan from the installation company, “Designa VLT The Know How of Parking.”
An online search for this slogan shows the electronic parking fee system comes from Designa VLT, a company claiming 60 years experience with around 6,000 installed systems in over 50 countries.
The company, DESIGNA Verkehrsleittechnik GmbH, is headquartered in Germany, where the Valued Added Tax rate is 19 percent.
Meantime, back here, Section 57.1 f (ii) of the 1992 V.A.G.S.T.
Act applies against those who “knowingly” charge “in excess of the amount properly so charged under this Act”.
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