The Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O.) of Samoa Airways, Fauo'o Fatu Tielu says there have been no further flight interruptions since November last year and ground handling services have since improved.

Fauo'o stressed during an interview with this newspaper following the arrival of their two body-wide loaders at the Faleolo International Airport to improve their ground handling services.

"That thing only happened for a few days in November and it's not happening now nor has it happened again since November and we have had new machines since November when that was fixed it has never happened again, the flight interruptions," he said.

"It was fixed and when the loader was received from Air New Zealand and since then towards the end of November, there have been no more problems.

"Then we received our two loaders refurbished from Spain towards the end of February and beginning of this month, and this improved our ground handling services."

Samoa Airways currently provides ground handling services for Air New Zealand and Fiji Airways, but last year around October, there were ongoing issues with faulty container loading systems due to aging equipment. 

In particular, the widebody aircraft belonging to Air NZ had been facing problems with its cargo when the hydraulic system for the container loader became faulty and forced the flight to leave without its cargo. 

The New Zealand government then provided a container loading machine to address ground handling equipment issues at the Faleolo International Airport at the time.

In October last year, a flight bound for New Zealand from Apia had to leave some of its cargo behind because the airport’s container loader system encountered some problems. 

Fauo'o said at the time that there had been a four-month delay by the supplier of the refurbished container loading equipment who is based in Spain.

Meanwhile, the C.E.O and the airline are confident about the improvement of the ground handling service since the incident last year.