Efforts of the Marshall Islands Aviation Task Force paid off with the arrival this past weekend of Nauru Airlines mail and cargo delivery flights from Guam and Honolulu.
In a historic development, Nauru Airlines was chartered by United Airlines to fulfill the contact that United has with the US Postal Service to deliver mail to and from the freely associated states. While United Airlines has carried some mail on its regular Island Hopper service, due to heavy loads of passengers and baggage, which get first priority, out of Honolulu and Guam, only a small volume of mail has arrived since Asia Pacific Airlines was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration on February 1.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of pounds of mail has been backlogged for many weeks in Guam and Honolulu awaiting air cargo service. United Airlines subcontracted with Asia Pacific Airlines to carry the bulk of the mail to and from the RMI. But that service ended February 1 and there is no end in sight to the FAA grounding order against APA.
The Nauru Airlines flight from Guam, which arrived Saturday night, and the return flight from Honolulu Sunday night delivered the first substantial volume of mail to Majuro in over two months.
The Cabinet-appointed Aviation Task Force has been working behind the scenes to come up with both a temporary fix to the mail and cargo delivery crisis — which prompted President Kabua to issue a declaration of emergency on March 16 — and a longer term solution.
Next weekend, Aviation Task Force officials are anticipating a meeting in Majuro involving Nauru Airlines, Air Kiribati, Air Marshall Islands and Australian government representatives to discuss new opportunities for cooperation to solve both passenger and cargo bottlenecks.
The expected meeting next weekend builds on an emergency meeting with Nauru Airlines cargo and flight operations manager Tom Bennett in mid-March. This was followed by a meeting March 25 with Nauru Airlines CEO Brett Gebbers, and Deputy CEO Captain Robert Eoe to discuss solutions for possible charter arrangements to bring in urgently needed USPS mail, courier packages from DHL, FEDEX, UPS, and TNT, and general air cargo that has been stranded in Guam and Hawaii since early February.
Aside from the cargo crisis, the Aviation Task Force has also been in discussion with Nauru Airlines seeking schedule improvements on south bound destination flights to connect Nadi and Tarawa, Nauru and Brisbane.
ATF member Anoop Kumar said Nauru Airlines does realize the urgent need in improving schedule for smooth connections. ATF and Nauru Airlines also discussed possible service to other destinations in the region, Kumar said.