Well done, P.M. Tuilaepa!

Dear Editor

The decision against Virgin Australia is brilliant and bold. 

I’m not a great fan of the P.M. and H.R.P.P most of the time but this is one of those calls made with the interest of the people first before politics and credit is given where it’s due. 

Rewind the clock back fifteen plus years ago when we first went into partnership with Virgin, they were just newbies around the Pacific scene. 

We were one of their first international break-through using the PAL ticket to gain access around the Pacific international scene. They were then called Pacific Blue because N.Z. would not allow them to operate inside N.Z. with an Aussie certificate. 

Virgin quickly used the PacBlue brand as their international arm but still controlled from Australia. Once their footings were firmly established around the international theatre, they snatched the brand back to Australia and named the whole thing Virgin with the NZ brand PacBlue totally wiped from the face of the earth. 

Virgin Samoa was a different deal because we owned an aeroplane when we went into partnership and we did have a share in the partnership unlike the NZ deal. 

Virgin quickly wiped out the PAL network we spend years and millions developing and only gave us a share in the Akl-Apw run and due to the state of our desperation at the time; we had zero grounds to argue.

This is the same deal they’re trying to sell with the Tiger Air deal. Tiger needs footing around the Pacific and international network and they’re trying to sell us a slave portion by giving us a cheap toilet paper deal with Tiger. 

Colonialism in every aspect. 

Smells like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

They should’ve come clean and hook a deal to share the portion of the pie with Fiji Airways instead they wanna play arrogance in thinking that the stupid coconuts will just roll over and dance all the time.

The P.M. is justified in calling them stupid because that’s what they think of us. Now it’s like going to toilet for a good number two dumping without a toilet paper and they’re trying to use politics to roll us over. 

Five to ten years ago in my travels, I over heard a conversation in Sydney by some individuals whom I believe were well informed in the aviation industry, talked about Virgin Samoa as a sore thumb in the Virgin brand and Virgin was looking for a way to erase the deal legally. 

They don’t wanna have anything to do with us. They’ve been dishing out a slave’s portion of the dividends fully aware that we have no grounds to argue.

I was told by someone from inside the government we are paying Virgin back with operational costs of running the partnership to the sum of hundreds of thousands of tala. 

If that is true then those dividends Virgin was giving us all these year are just drunk p**s. They just simply sign a paper deal with our name in it and that all our worth to them, just a name in the piece of paper.

Maybe with our P.M’s heavy English accent, Mr Bougetti didn’t quite get the message, here it is again, “It’s over dude get a life.”

May I suggest that the government especially the airline stand behind with everything we have in rallying our people in NZ and Auss to stand with our airline in support because war is coming in the skies and we don’t have the resources to stand toe to toe with Air New Zealand, with Virgin let alone Fiji Airways.

Ignore these economics lightweights that are propelling the notion that more competition means good service. That high school economics maybe good in a high school discussion but it’s not the real world of business where theft is allowed as long as it’s legal. 

It’s dirty in every aspect and our utmost priority is to protect our investment in our airline. Ask Charlie Ah Liki how he would handle this if it were his business. I bet everything in my reputation that the first thing he’ll do is to protect his investment from poachers of foreign invaders like Virgin. 

Riding on the excuse of more competition equals cheap service, is a lame and a weak excuse that sips easily out of mouths of people who love to eat and do no work. I’ve already rallied my relatives in NZ on their support for our airline and we should all do the same. Good luck PAL, Samoa Airways. Fly high and fly safe.

 

Steve Roebeck

Samoa Observer

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