Air Niugini

✅ Trip Verified | Flew Wapanamanda-Port Moresby-Singapore on 20-21 March 2022. The domestic leg was on an old Dash8-200 aircraft always used on this route. It became the noisiest flight I have had for many years. Service on board given (juices and biscuits). Half load. Free seating. Allowed to check in 30 hours in advance. Flight delayed 25 Minutes which is bearable. Smooth check-in, and very fast luggage delivery in Moresby. The international leg was eased by the airline’s Helpdesk who advised promptly on corona and other documents requirements/changes to avoid any check-in panic or denial. Check-In took long time due to loads of document checks. 3 counters open was hardly enough for the only 60+ passengers, e.g. it took me alone 25 minutes to get a BP issued. Lack of a full alliance with e.g. Oneworld, complicates things – Qatar, who issued my ticket, including for onward flights, is only a partner. Lounge access in POM were generously given to all the airlines’ frequent flyers. Their lounge was good in terms of hot foods offering, view, and space (we were only 5 visitors to fill 145 chair-spaces). Drink offering were shockingly poor; absolutely no alcoholic beverages beyond milk and sodas - and the coffee was burnt to the level to call the fire brigade. The actual flight was on an aged, noisy, but well refurbished B767-300. Flight punctual and even early in both ends. FAs were kind and informative. The complete lack of alcoholic beverages is completely sub-par: it was apologized by FAs and said to be temporarily and change back by April 2022 to be re-instated. Only 1 meal service on a 6 hours’ afternoon flight is scarce. Food offerings were 2 options, beef and chicken – that complemented the offerings from Paradise lounge well where we had fish, fish-balls, lamb, and cheeses. No WiFi nor IFE onboard – but flight monitors at every seat made us know the name of all Indonesian islands passed. Power outlets provided at every seat. While business class was full, there were only a 10% load in economy which gave us all the space in the world to flat out. Can only rate to 7 of 10 but will add 1-2 more when the full drink repertoire returns.

✅ Trip Verified | Singapore to Wabag via Port Moresby 2-3 March 2022 on B767-300 and Dash 8-300, respectively. Flights on time. Transit in POM was 3 hours which was just enough time to fully disembark, tests, transit, luggage, and check-in onward travel to remote provinces. Old aircrafts, both of >25 years of age but well taped together. Ground service and Helpdesk excellent, prompt and cooperative. At a certain stage the airline allowed me to keep the domestic ticket open as they realised the numerous changes: I had to change ticket 4 times due to strict and changing travel/entering regulations to PNG - all worsened by Corona and transit variations (first 2 legs from CPH via DOH to SIN) in Singapore including “transit clearances”, immigration’s approval, tests, visa, criminal record certificate, vaccinations, etc. What happened to all the fun in the World? Gate pass and Check-Ins were easy in SIN as well in POM. The airlines’ cooperation with Qatar Airways is smooth and ease procedures as reduce ticket price. Moreover, their Oneworld Cooperation granted me free access to Qantas Business Lounge in Singapore which was a great relief and a pleasure of some luxury. The first flight was a night flight and a fully acceptable hot dinner was served. Could stretch out and sleep even in the very noisy B767. No inflight entertainment (just map tracking). No alcohol offered on board on any of the 2 flights. Ample seating space. Mediocre on board services - but somehow OK. Airbridge only provided in Singapore - had to walk while disembarking in POM and onwards. Domestic ticket was reissued with ease in the international airport, and thereafter allowing me to check-in before entering the very crowded domestic airport 400 meter away. Baggage allowance followed the internal flight, otherwise only 16 kg, which is half. Domestic boarding gates were in the open under an open roof. It was clear and easy. Onboard, catering was minimal (juice and snack), but appreciated. The sole FA was well-groomed, effective, and took well care of my bulky hand-luggage put into a front cabinet. Underway, a ceiling panel dropped half-down in the cabin and was then hold up by passengers for 30 Minutes. FA tried to tape it up, but failed. The destination WBM has 2-3 flights per week and the trip took 90 Minutes over hostile, forest covered mountains. Would fly again.

✅ Trip Verified | You can wait in a line to checkin, for hours, and get little to no customer service because the airline overbooked. They process executive “priorities,” and leave ordinary people to wait. In queues with no social distancing. There is no communication by Customer Service staff to help explain the situation. Sometimes they leave the desk, and disappear. Leaving us looking at each other, wondering what is happening. There is no empathy. These are trying times to say the least with Delta on the rise, but these situations can be avoided if airlines operated with compassion. It is unethical to overbook. It is unethical to rebook for flights knowing the airplane is undergoing maintenance. It is unethical then to provide no water or refreshments onboard a later plane - after passengers have been waiting 8 hours. We arrived in Port Moresby, exhausted, hungry, thirsty and traumatised - 9 hours later. Customers deserve better service. I was later told that this is the new normal for Air Niugini and that has been occurring for the past three weeks and is expected to continue right up until Christmas as the airport gets redeveloped. This practice, on early bird flights to bump passengers off because of overbooking will continue. Air Niugini's Dash-8 fleet are old and in desperate need of repair.

Not Verified | Port Moresby to Hong Kong in December 2019. I was overweight on luggage. But the airport treatment I got, was traumatic. The power was off. The internet was off. I either had to pay $800 or leave my bag behind. I wanted to pay the fine, but the power was off for hours. I could not change currency. I could not pay the customs, because they could not give me a receipt. I almost missed my flight.

Not Verified | My itinerary was Manila - Port Moresby - Honiara - Port Vila - Fiji (plus some domestic). Several flight was with Air Niugini First they cancel my flight from POM-HON, which they of course never told me anything about. After today I realised that I shouldn't even have expect that. I then after that realised that I would have to stay 2 weeks in PNG to be allowed to go to Honiara after visiting the Phillipines because of the coronavirus. My next plan is to book a flight direct to Vanuatu. The flight is listed as direct but at the last step I notice a 50 min stop in Honiara for dropping of / unloading passengers. (No disembarking.) I decided to contact air niugini just to make sure this wouldn't become problem. 9-10 days later I still dont have a answer after emailing with 5 people via 8 different emails in 3 different countries. And yes, of we tried to call but never a clear answer. One even said we would be fine but another one said not possible. When checking in at Manila airport for the POM flight I'm almost denied boarding since my onward ticket is cancelled and I couldn't book my next flight because I never received an answer about transit rules. When arriving in POM I ask the Air Niugini office (they are actually friendly when explaining that they cant help you with anything.) They printed loads of the IATA travel restrictions rules that I already have on my phone and I was explaining them about. They said I would not be allowed to have any kind of transit in Honiara. (The Virus is a new thing so that most likely the reason we received so many different answers and no answers from most of them. Then I decide to just skip them both and go to Fiji. I have to choose the more expensive option to stop over in Brisbane. With Carry on 7kg I dont need any tra sit visa since I'm not leaving international gate. My backpack is 9kg. Checking it in (free) results in leaving international gate for re checking since they dint ha e sharevmcode with the next flight and this would result in me having to get a transit visa that obviously would take 8-12 days according to my application. I then asked the counter during one of my domestic flights if they could be so kind to let me go with 9kg and the entire problem would be solved and the guy said ofc, after all this trouble that should not be any problem. Just go over to the sales counter and get it confirmed. Nope, big no. Of course I couldn't bring a 9kg carry on. So now I'm stuck here forced to throw away 2kg of personal stuff to be able to get out of here. I recommend to pay a bit more for another airline.

Not Verified | What a joke, i had just arrived from Perth via Brisbane to land in Port Moresby for my connection to Rabaul. When i arrived in Port Moresby i proceeded from the international terminal to the domestic to check in for my next flight to find out i had been bumped onto the flight tomorrow due to the plane being downsized from the Fokker 100 to a Dash 8. They were not willing to compensate my accommodation costs for a night in Port Moresby, even though they have now just cost me my transfer and first nights accommodation in Rabaul. So demanded to be placed on standby for the flight in case nobody showed up on the flight. The check in staff had the worst attitude i have ever come across in aviation. I got lucky and was able to board the flight for it then be diverted to Hoskins, we then had to wait at Hoskins for Air Nugini to organise accomodation for our flight, this took them nearly 2 hours. I wont fly this airline again unless absolutely required.

Not Verified | Fly from Brisbane to Port Moresby with Air Nuigini in Economy class today. Leg room in economy was a pleasant surprise! Food was first class. Cabin crew were very friendly & helpful. Let's be honest, no-one really likes flying economy, but it's so much cheaper than Business Class! But over all, I thought the trip was excellent! The only 2 negatives I have are: 1: Only 3 check in staff to book in a plane load of people. (There were 2 customer service staff working, well one was working & the other was surfing the web) 2: Excess baggage charges. You get a 30kg limit in Economy, but if you go over that they charge $21.00 per kilo.

✅ Trip Verified | So we first had some trouble as the airline told us that we wouldn't be able to get our original flight but after some over the phone conversations with a very helpful woman in the Air Niugini base in Cairns we were able to get on another flight which was a day earlier. We were desperate to make it to Honiara so we agreed to taking this flight although it meant staying overnight in Port Moresby before going to Honiara on the original second leg of the journey the next day. We arrived in Port Moresby a bit confused and unsure as the what was going to happen, luckily we met a lovely woman who works for the Air Niugini airport team in Port Moresby airport. She was incredibly helpful, she sorted out our free overnight accommodation in the holiday inn which included two free meals and a very nice room and also shuttles to and from the airport. She helped us get out some money and advised us on how much we would need. She even helped us see the town because we wanted to have a look to see what was there so her friend showed us round in her car. Thank you! The flights were very nice with TV's and food and drink served on a flight as short as two hours. This was a plus but was unfortunate that we were delayed on the way there and that our flight got cancelled on the return journey.

Not Verified | I was so looking forward to traveling with Air Niugini and not having to transit via Australia to get to the Philippines from Vanuatu. Unfortunately it turned out to be the worst airline travel experience to date. First our flight was cancelled after sitting at the boarding gate for 2hrs with no info other than 'there is an indefinite delay'. Then the flight was rescheduled for the next day, no info on our connecting flight was given until we arrived in Port Moresby from Vanuatu. The flight from Port Vila to Port Moresby was on a very old looking ATR aircraft, with no entertainment. Aircon was turned off for the 30 minute stopover in Honiara. Promises made by the Air Niugini ground staff to rebook my connecting domestic flights in the Philippines were not honoured and I was only advised of this after the scheduled domestic flights were missed, and only 5 minutes before boarding to Manila. No compensation was offered for the missed domestic flights or even an apology for providing the wrong information. Our baggage was then lost on arrival in Manila. 23 days later, there is still no sign of it and no compensation for lost bag to date. No response recieved to complaint email sent via website. Also no answer on phone numbers listed on website. Another complaint sent via agent in Vanuatu and response was simply 'fill out a form about your baggage' and 'our contract of carriage was only for Port Vila to Manila, no interline agreement'. So why did the staff advise otherwise? After losing baggage, buying new clothes and domestic flights (approx. $500), we requested an upgrade on return flight to have some positive experience with Air Niugini to look forward to. There was no response to this and the request at check in was rejected despite half of business class being empty. The airline also rejected the carriage of my traditional lanterns because Air Niugini exceptionally does not accept the carriage of any items that contain lights that aren't LED lights (I've successfully brought these lanterns in to Australia, USA, Vanuatu - never a problem). I requested they hold them until relatives could collect them the next day and was advised no storage space was available. After spending half a day driving to purchase them, I had to throw them away at the airport (another $100 lost). Air Niugini, you were such an epic disappointment and your poor service ruined our vacation. I understand flights occasionally get cancelled, baggage sometimes gets lost but your responses to customer issues relating to these things were inconsistent, incorrect or inadequate. In the future, I will avoid Air Niugini unless there are really no other options available. Don'tempted by their cheap prices! Like me, you could end up paying more than the cost of flying with a decent airline and have the added frustration and stress of having to deal with an airline that has no interest in resolving customer issues when at fault.

✅ Trip Verified | The outbound journey was delayed 10 hours in Port Moresby. The delayed flight was organised to leave at 2am, however no ground staff at airport were organised, so we sit on tarmac until ground staff arrive at 5am. The return flight from Pohpei was supposed to leave Pohnpei at 2 am and actually left 9.45am. I turned up to airport at 2 am and found out the flight was rescheduled to 9.45am. I contacted AirNuigini twice via email prior to departure to confirm that no changes had been made. I received an email saying that your servers were not working. I was not contacted about this change, but others on the flight all new about this change a week before, as they had booked flights only a week earlier. Therefore, you new about the changes a week earlier, did not advise me or even book me on the forward leg of the journey. The flight leaves Pohnpei at 9.45am, but we are not booked on the continuing flight from Port Moresby to Brisbane. This flight leaves half empty, and several passengers are not booked on this flight because Quants reservations are not open on Sunday. People who booked the week earlier are however on the flight. We were then sent to Sydney Airport and a connecting flight arranged to Brisbane. When we land in Sydney, Qantas advise us that Air Nuigini connection to Brisbane is illegal because there is less than an hour between flights. The checkin had closed and there are no more flights that day. We are then stranded at Sydney Airport with no contact available from either Quantas or Airi Nugini. We then go to Flight Centre and are told there is only one flight left to Brisbane at a cost of $800. Some passengers take this option, but I don’t trust the airline to compensate me. So I am stranded with nobody to contact In Sydney at 7pm at night. Luckily some stranger took pity on me and let me sleep on their couch for the night. I contacted your airline in the morning and I was rebooked to Brisbane at 11am with Qantas. Qantas then advised that my 2 bags of 15kg were subject to excess baggage fee of $70. Eventually I got home at 12pm in Brisbane.