[cwoodward]

Fiji Airlines have taken delivery of the first of 2 Airbus A350s that were ordered and built for Hong Kong Airlines.Next week The second to be delivered I understand bring the small airlines A350 fleet to four A350s

The aircraft were never taken up by cash strapped Hong Kong Airlines and have been stored by Airbus in France for close to four years then lightly reconfigured for FIJI .

The mainly tourist airline are becoming masters at taking aircraft ordered by others and not taken up with the previous two A350s also being aircraft ordered by another and never delivered airline.
The cabin are not unlike Cathays layout but 2 class (at the moment) with 32 lai-flat herringbone seats in Business

The latest A350 started flying on the Hong Kong route 3 days after it was delivered. replacing the youngish 2 class A330’s that has plied the route for the past few years and has been flying at near capacity on its now 6 times a week HK flights.

Fiji is using its first two A350s on its US routes and now to Hong Kong and probably also Tokyo but do they plan in the future to fly on to UK/Europe from Hong Kong?

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AndrewinHK

[AndrewinHK]

Cwoodward everything I heard from friends who flew with Fiji has been positive. Having only 4 a350, I doubt Europe is within Fiji Airways business plan. Given much larger tourist markets, places like Hawaii don’t even have direct service to Europe I would imagine it is extremely unlikely Fiji ever serves Europe, similar to other smaller carriers like ANZ, just de risk and code share.

[cwoodward]

As always Andrew time will tell -certainly the traffic is there.

[tomyam42]

I can share my negative Fiji Airlines experience with you. About 7 years ago I booked online with Fiji Airlines for my family to fly from Hong Kong to and from Fiji. We arrived at the airport in Hong Kong on the date we had booked only to learn that our flight had been advanced by 24 hours without advising us. Fiji Airlines accepted that this was their fault and agreed to put us on the next flight which was the following day, and without any extra charges. I checked what seats we would be allocated and was aghast to learn that they had put us in economy, once again without telling us. I insisted that having paid for business class seats that is where we must fly. They agreed to that but the first available flight was several days later. I sought compensation for the hotel bookings which I had also prepaid but might as well have asked for a ticket to the moon. We had our curtailed holiday, it was to include attending the wedding of one of my daughters, for which we arrived in time, after sitting/lying in a pretty uncomfortable A330 seat. I trust that the A350 seats are way better and that Fiji Airlines no longer advances flights without notifying passengers but I doubt if securing compensation for indirect expenses incurred would be any better. I would just expect them to say, “BULA BULA”.
(Brings back memories of Benny Hill.)

[cwoodward]

Not at all great story but 7 years is a long time in the life of a small airline.

This is the first bad report that I have read in many years but this sort of thing happens on occasions with all airlines and some in the UK that are it seems daily reported in this forum.

It’s not been mentioned here and may be of interest – Fiji Airlines is these days majority owned by the Fiji government and about 40% by Qantas with Air NZ owning a % or two. It is run as an independent business.

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AndrewinHK

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