Stranded Air Fiji passengers make it home

APIA – Samoan air travel passengers stranded in Fiji following the grounding of an Air Fiji plane have now arrived home.

Acting manager of the local Fiji Airways office, Stefan Keil, said the last of the 10 passengers flew home on an extra flight put on by the company on Wednesday night.

According to a source, passengers due to travel to Fiji were left marooned in Samoa for two days after a flight from Nadi to Faleolo Airport in Samoa was forced to turn back.

The Fiji Times reported that the reason for the plane to return to Nadi was that pilots detected an anomaly in one of the aircraft’s engines.

The article quotes the airline’s managing director Stefan Pichler as saying Fiji Airways would not compromise on safety standards and praised the pilots for returning instead of continuing with the flight.

“Last night (Sunday night) at around 2300 hours a Fiji Airways flight FJ 253 bound for Apia, Samoa, from Nadi had an air turn back as a precautionary measure after a slight shift in one of the engine parameters was detected in-flight,” Pichler said.

“The parameters were still well within the manufacturers’ limits and the captain made the decision to bring the aircraft back to Nadi only as a precaution.”

“The aircraft landed safely without incident and all passengers were looked after and are being accommodated in Nadi while our team rebooked them on the next available flight.”

The incident came in the wake of another four days ago where fumes inside the cabin of a Boeing 737-800 aircraft forced the pilot of an Auckland flight to make an air turn back 15 minutes outbound from Nadi, the newspaper reports.

Air Fiji’s Keil said over the past two days the airline had put on extra flights to fly out those passengers booked on last Sunday’s Fiji Airways flight FJ253.

He said all passengers were looked after and accommodated until the final travellers departed Wednesday night.