Virgin Pacific Blue forces Papua New Guineans to risk their lives

Total outrage and disgust is all I have to say about Virgin Pacific Blue. The Brisbane based Airline Carrier which is in partnership with Airlines PNG, running the Port Moresby to Brisbane route, today (14th Jan 2009) forced Papua New Guinean travelers and foreign nationals to to risk their lives, by going on a mercy flight to Fiji that is currently facing flooding and cyclones. People who purchased tickets from Virgin Pacific Blue or Airlines PNG were not advised of the change in flight plan and those who purchased non refundable fares were not given the option not to travel. The only option that Virgin Pacific Blue passengers who had brought non refundable tickets were given by Airlines PNG staff at Jackson's International Airport was to travel or lose your money. Many passengers faced with this dilemma took the risky option and decided to fly to Fiji.

It seems that Virgin Pacific Blue seems to think that the traveling public in Papua New Guinea is expendable. In order to save costs and get a good publicity stunt Virgin Pacific Blue has gone out and risked PNG lives. The idea behind the mercy flight was good, but the way that Virgin Pacific Blue has executed it was totally pig headed and disgusting. Virgin Pacific Blue did not take into consideration what the travelling public in PNG wants. For example if they were really trying to do a good deed why not leave the PNG passengers in Port Moresby and fly to Fiji, and then pick up the PNG passengers on the way back. Instead they were willing to risk the lives of Papua New Guineans to go on a mercy flight that is going to give them them good publicity which is subsidised by the PNG passengers. Shame on you big Australian business, for thinking that the travelling public in Papua New Guinea is expendable. I wounder what would have happened if the same thing took place in Australia. For one thing it would have being a public outcry and on the evening news of every major TV network in Australia. They also would have current affairs stories about it etc. But here in Papua New Guinea nothing is done about it. So big Australian companies continue to get away with things that they would not be caught for dead doing in their own country. Simply because we are a poor developing nation that can not afford to have the big government statutory bodies that other countries like Australia have.

The Civil Aviation in Papua New Guinea should also be questioned why it lets PNG lives put at risk for a publicity stunt by Sir Richard Branson's company. After all Richard Branson is already infamous for his long list of publicity stunts. This is just another reckless attempt at getting attention by the Virgin group of companies. But now they have gone to far by risking Papua New Guinean lives is not acceptable.

To the defense of Virgin Pacific Blue it turns out that after a lot of arguing with Airlines PNG's poorly trained enquirers counter staff at Jackson's airport. Passengers were able to get a refund, but the catch is they were not telling people. So is this just poor service by Airlines PNG International Terminal staff or a ploy to help their partner airline to avoid refunding customers? For the travelling public in PNG I am hoping that it is just poor service, because I would hate to think that Papua New Guinean and Australian lives are being risked to save a few kina. This just goes back to the question, what is the Civil Aviation industry in PNG doing?

This Wantok for one has decided not to purchase any more online tickets from Virgin Pacific Blue simply because they think that PNG lives are expandable.

Air fares could go down this week, but what about ISP charges?

Both Domestic and International airfares could go down this week which is great news for the traveling public in Papua New Guinea. According to the NBC "Air Niugini, expects to reduce its international and domestic sector fuel surcharges" between the 5th and 10th of January 2009 but is currently awaiting International Parity Pricing. This is great news for all Wantoks out there that are planning to do some air travel in 2009, and with the current competition that Air Niugini is facing from Airlines PNG and Virgin Pacific Blue we could see a decent drop in air fares in 2009. This is also in line with the current global oil prices that may help make air travel affordable in 2009.

I for one am a great supporter of competition and as a consumer 2008 was good year for competition both in the airline industry (Air Niugini/Qantas Vs Airlines PNG/Virgin Pacific Blue) and telecommunications industry (Digicel Vs B Mobile). But what I am hoping for in 2009 is for ICCC to give the go a head for Telikom or one of its subsidiaries to become a Internet Service Provider(ISP). Then hopefully we will see some real progress in the reduction of the astronomical prices that Papua New Guineans are charged by local ISP's.

If you compare what people in Papua New Guinea are charge by ISPs to other countries in the region you feel totally ripped off. For example iPrimus Speedster 6GB plan (broadband wireless) for 6 Gigabytes of downloads per month was advertised in the December 2008 NetGuide issue for $39.95 per month. So for arguments sake lets say that the current PNG Kina to Aus Dollar is 0.5. That would mean that this plan would be K79.90 per month, with speed reduction after you go over your limit so there would be no extra charges. Now if you were to look at Daltron's entry level standard wireless plan 64k - 100. Meaning that you get a 64kb link and you are allowed to use 100 Megabytes before you are charged K0.50 for every excess Megabyte. For a monthly fee of K225, you don't have to be a maths professor to feel that you are being ripped off in a big way. To Daltron's defence I must admit that here in Papua New Guinea, currently we do not have a half decent communications infrastructure and Daltron buys their data wholesale from Telikom so they can not go any lower then what Telikom charge them.

With these arguments in mind I am thinking that it is time for competition to enter the ISP market place in PNG. To give all the grassroot Wantoks out there a fighting chance to be able to get affordable internet access. The PNG government should treat internet access as commoditiy that all Papua New Guinean's should have and not something for the privilege Wantoks out there. More funding is need to help reduce the cost of Internet access to help make it more accessible to the general public in Papua New Guinea.

Use NORAD to Track Santa on Google Earth

In 1955 an American department store had an advert listing Santa Claus phone number. Which resulted in thousands of children calling the number to speak to Santa Claus. In fact the number had being miss printed and was the emergency number of NORAD (back then it was CONAD).

To cut a long story short the director of CONAD at the time asked his staff to to give children a speculated position of where Santa's sleigh was. As the years passed NORAD modernized its techniques to follow Santa using 47 radar installations and a number of different geostationary satellites to monitor Santa's progress around the world dropping off presents for christmas. This year marks the 50th year (1958 - 2008) that NORAD will be following Santa's progress around the world.

So this year if you want to track Santa Claus's progress around the world you or the children in your life can use the following website to track Santa noradsanta.org

Port Moresby Internation Airport to Small

On Monday afternoon when arriving back to Port Moresby from Brisbane on Virgin Pacific Blue. I was horrified to see the long line of people waiting to pass through immigration. Between 12:30pm and 1:30pm four flights from overseas destination arrived. To put it simply the international airports arrival lounge could not handle the amount of passengers that arrived. After waiting in a long line for almost an hour there was further delay because the one baggage conveyer belt in the terminal could not handle the amount of bags coming through. To be honest wantoks with the increase in the amount of international flights coming in and out of Papua New Guinea the International Terminal in Port Moresby needs to be made bigger.

Pacific Blue makes travelling to Australia easy

The introduction of competition has being great for the airline industry in Papua New Guinea. For starters the cost of air travel to destinations within Papua New Guinea and to overseas countries has become a lot cheaper. For example this week Airlines PNG was offering specials to Lae for K99 from Port Moresby.

On Wednesday I had a bit of time to kill so when a friend asked me to accompany them to the Air Nuigini travel center at Wagani next to Stop n Shop. I decided to tag along for the ride. In hind sight I wish that I had not gone. There was a long line and after waiting for what seemed like ages my friend suggested that we log on to Virgin Pacific Blue's website and see if it was possible to book a ticket to Sydney. To cut a long story short using a credit card it took a whole 5 minutes to book and pay for the ticket online. The great news about this is now you don't have to wait in a long line any more to book overseas flights as long as you have credit card or debit card (e.g. BSP Visa Debit Card).

It is times like this that it makes me think that the gap of the digital divided it getting smaller. If you don't know what the digital divide is click on the link above to read a paper that I found on Google Knol that I fellow Papua New Guinean has writtern.