Speaking at a press conference on Monday, the Transport Minister outlined the decision as part of the Federal Government’s continued support for Rex, which has helped the airline’s regional Saab 340 flights continue to operate while it remains in administration.
YJ-AV73 is operating charter services daily between Port Vila and Santo, and between Port Vila and Tanna, complementing scheduled charter services that restarted earlier this month using the Vanuatuan flag carrier’s DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft.
The possible sale includes AH-64E Apache sustainment support services, US government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistics support services, technical data and publications, personnel training and other related elements of logistics, and program support.
As part of the Aviation White Paper, the Government has identified barriers to disability access in aviation including unreasonably long check-in wait times, refusal of assistance animals, wheelchair access limits, and disability-unfriendly design.
Transport Minister Catherine King said the industry-run Airline Customer Advocate (ACA), which is widely considered ineffectual in addressing consumer complaints and refund requests, 'hasn’t made enough progress' in fixing these issues.
The space agency said returning Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore onboard Starliner was too risky as engineers still hadn’t fully deduced what went wrong with its thrusters.