Qantas stays on good terms with Fiji

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 17

Qantas stays on good terms with Fiji

NZPA-AAP Suva The Australian Government may not recognise Fiji’s republican Government, but relations between Australia’s international airline and the Fiji authorities are cordial, to say the least. Late last year Qantas pumped sAusts million into Fiji’s international carrier, Air Pacific, representing a 19.57 per cent shareholding in the airline which it has managed since 1985. On Friday night Qantas’s chairman, Jim Leslie, and chief executive, John Menadue, dined with the Fiji Prime Minis-

ter, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, at Suva’s most exclusive restaurant. The dinner was hosted by Air Pacific. No official statement was issued about the meeting of the three men, all accompanied by their wives, but sources said that all were in good humour. Ratu Mara was "in good form,” one source said, and apparently was excepting Qantas from his bitter criticism of Australian reaction to last year’s two military coups and to accusations — which he has strongly denied — of his involvement. Mr Leslie and Mr

Menadue returned to Australia on Saturday night by Air Pacific after an unpublicised three-day visit. Before Friday evening’s dinner, Mr Leslie spoke briefly at a cocktail party hosted by Qantas and said Qantas’s sAusts million investment in Air Pacific showed that the Australian airline had confidence in Fiji’s future as it battled to regain economic stability. Discounted air fares and holiday packages offered by Air Pacific brought tourists back to Fiji last year after a slump which followed the coups.