Air Niugini building takes shape

Air Niugini’s new residential building, located next to the airline’s head office at Seven Mile in Port Moresby, is expected to be completed early next year.

The nine-storey building has 138 rooms, including studios and one and two-bedroom apartments.

The building is designed to meet the airline’s staff accommodation requirements and ensure a sustainable long-term asset for the airline.

The building has a lobby, restaurant, swimming pool, gymnasium and an outdoor exercise track. The restaurant and gymnasium will be open to the public, while the swimming pool will be used for cabin crew training that is currently conducted overseas.

The building includes a solar energy system as part of Air Niugini’s commitment to ecofriendly energy solutions. ■

Twelve Air Niugini engineers have returned to the country, armed with their aircraft maintenance engineer (AME) certificates after successfully completing a four-year cadet engineering program at Air New Zealand’s Training Institute in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The program was funded by Air Niugini at a cost of PGK5.3 million.

Air Niugini chief executive officer Simon Foo says Air Niugini is serious about training and development, and invests millions of kina towards training annually.

The airline spent PGK440,000 to train each cadet engineer.

The next step for the engineers is to sit an exam for their PNG Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) aircraft maintenance engineer certificates. ■