Muralee Siva

Chairman of the Company’s Board of Directors, Murray Woo, said “Muralee believes that after more than 5 years in the role and with rebranding and the initial stage of the re-fleeting program successfully completed, it is time for him to move on, and to allow someone with a new perspective and a different set of ideas to come in and take the Company through the next stage of its development”.Mr Siva was appointed as CEO in November 2012, and has overseen a great deal of change in the airline.  Under his watch, the airline has implemented a strategy of focussing more on regular passenger tra

PNG Air CEO, Muralee Siva, announced this during the company’s annual general meeting.

He said the aerodrome upgrades that are currently being done are disruptive and limit the operations they can carry out.

“For example, the Goroka airport upgrade that is still not completed limits our ability to take the ATRs to that port, with a negative impact on the bottom-line.”

Siva added: “We have internet reception problems in most of the ports, which in turn affects our on-time performance.

The airline in announcing its 2017 half year results say the company achieved positive results in terms of profit compared to last year’s.

The airline introduced its 6th brand new ATR 72-600 aircraft in June as part of the strategy.

PNG Air’s CEO Muralee Siva said “We were able to increase passenger revenue by nearly 27% compared to the corresponding period in 2016, despite having the same overall capacity. 

This indicates the attraction of the ATRs we’ve been bringing in to replace the older Dash 8 aircraft and justifies the strategy we’ve followed”.

The livery was introduced when the airline began bringing in its brand new ATR 72-600 aircraft in late 2015.

CNN commented that it was a contemporary depiction of ancient patterns that was designed to reflect the nation's diversity and that traditional icons from around the country were incorporated on the unusual and striking design.

PNG Air joined major world airlines such as British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, All Nippon Airlines, Qatar Airways and Taiwan’s EVA on CNN’s list.

This follows a recent renewal audit.

BARS was developed by mining resource companies and the Flight Safety Foundation to establish a common safety audit standard for suppliers of aviation services to the resource industry.  

It provides industry companies with the level of safety assurance they require, measured against very stringent standards.  

Only eight audit companies worldwide are approved to perform BARS audits.

In a statement from the Port Moresby Stock exchange this morning, PNG Air announced that the aircrafts will be bought from the manufacturer, the French company ATR, with the first of the new aircraft to be delivered in 2019.

PNG Air CEO Muralee Siva said the introduction of the brand new ATR 72-600s underpins the airline’s strategy to bring affordable, comfortable and dependable air services to the PNG domestic market.

“PNG deserves the best,” he said.

“While lower commodity prices have contributed to many of the economic problems facing PNG and PNG Air, one benefit has been that fuel prices have been low over this period, although they appear to be firming now,” PNG Air’s chief executive officer Muralee Siva said.  

“Low fuel prices certainly benefit PNG Air, although those benefits have been off-set by depreciation of the PNG Kina.