Three months after settling on the A220 as the backbone of their regional jet fleet renewal strategy, Air Niugini (PX, Port Moresby) has signed a firm order with Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) to buy six A220-100s. The airline has also announced that it will lease three A220-300s plus two more A220-100s from third-party lessors. In Port Moresby on November 1, 2023, Air Niugini A/CEO Gary Seddon called the deal "a milestone in the history of the national airline."
The six A220-100s purchased from Airbus will start landing in the second quarter of 2025, with deliveries continuing over three years. In August, Air Niugini settled on the Airbus aircraft after also evaluating the E195-E2 from Embraer (EMB, São José dos Campos U.E. Stumpf International). At the time, Papua New Guinea's Minister for State-Owned Enterprises, William Duma, said the order would be for 11 aircraft. However, he did not provide a numbers breakdown for each type.
The A220s will replace Air Niugini's fleet of six F70s and seven F100s, with each type having an average age of 27.6 years and 30.9 years, respectively. Currently, half of the F70s and three of the F100s are out of the air for maintenance reasons. Seddon recently highlighted the lack of investment in MRO at the state-owned airline over the last decade, which is now leading to high numbers of planes going out of service and causing reliability issues across the network.
The signing ceremony in Port Moresby was attended by Duma, Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape, and Airbus Asia Pacific President Anand Stanley. Neither Seddon nor PNG government officials disclosed further details of the additional A220s arriving on lease. However, ch-aviation has contacted Air Niugini for further information.
The A220 order significantly progresses Air Niugini's fleet renewal plan, which so far also includes two B787-8s, which are due to arrive in the first half of 2026 and will replace the carrier's pair of aging B767-300ERs. In addition, the airline wants to consolidate its turboprop fleet down to ACV!DH8300s and DHC-8-Q400s."Over the past 25 years, Air Niugini has had multiple types of aircraft in its fleet, and there is a view to rationalising that from six types down to three, possibly four," Seddon told ch-aviation earlier this year.
Duma, the minister responsible for the state-owned airline, said the upcoming aircraft acquisitions would be 80% financed by external export credit agencies and 20% by PNG government funds.
