The Chief Executive Officer of Samoa Airways, Fauo'o Fatu Tielu has confirmed that an airport container loader machine has arrived from New Zealand but its use has been delayed until staff undergo training.

In an interview with the Samoa Observer on Wednesday, Fauo'o explained that although the machine may have arrived and is currently at the Faleolo International Airport, it won't be operational until special training for the ground handling staff is completed.

"The machine from Air New Zealand arrived yesterday (Tuesday) and it's now currently at the airport and the engineering team from Air New Zealand will arrive next Tuesday to train our employees," he said. "The training will probably take about three days before the team returns on Thursday. 

"Until our staff are trained to use the machine, only then we can use it but in the meantime, our other machines that were facing some problems are working again and we've been using them for two weeks now."

Samoa Airways provides ground handling services for Air New Zealand and Fiji Airways international flights but there have been ongoing issues with the faulty container loading systems due to aging equipment.

Meanwhile, the container loading machine arrived just in time. However, there were passengers who arrived on the Fiji Airways FJ255 flight on Monday who were concerned about how their cargo was unloaded manually using the belt loader machine which requires assistance from the staff.

Amanda Ah Colt, who spoke to this newspaper on Monday and was one of the passengers on the FJ255 flight, expressed her disappointment at how the staff unloaded her cargo from the flight.

"We saw them throwing our suitcases on the machine while they were being loaded off the plane which they should've not because some of our suitcases contain things that can easily break," she said.

"When we got our suitcases, some of the suitcases were broken by the handles which was definitely their fault because we were just holding our luggage by the handles before we departed Fiji and there is no way they broke by themselves in the plane."

When the passenger's concerns were raised to Fauo'o on Wednesday, he asked for photos of the cargo being unloaded taken by the passengers to be sent to him via email so he could look into it.

Asked whether such concerns were raised with him before, he said not in his time as the C.E.O. of the airline.