Plane lands in Esa’ala after more than 20 years

The last time an airplane landed at Esa’ala in Milne Bay Province, the Late Bill Skate became Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Silas Atopare becomes Governor-General, and the Sandline Crisis brings PNG to a standstill.

That was 20 years ago.

Today locals in Esa’ala were surprised when a PNG Air Dash 8 aircraft landed at the Districts Airstrip which is currently being given a facelift.

Locals told Loop PNG that they were surprised but happy to finally see an aircraft land in their home district after so many years.

PNG Air is intending to bring its services to the island District and opted for a test run following a meeting with Minister for Civil Aviation and local MP, Steven Davies.

Discussions on services to the district began early last year.

PNG AIR CEO, Muralee Siva, was on the test run flight said he was impressed and that the runway was almost complete.

He said the viability of running flights to the district was positive and highlighted the potential growth.

“From a commercial point of view there’s between 50,000 – 60,000 people there. And generally when we have those numbers you can justify the services. So we’ll start with minimum services to see how it works and hopefully we can build it up and probably have daily services down the line,” Siva said.

Minister Steven told Loop PNG that he has a sustainability program to ensure that flights services begin and continue in his District.

He said he was even willing to give PNG Air the exclusive rights to service flights to his District.

“I am also prepared to write an exclusive agreement for only this operator to come here, because then it gives them an incentive, and together we can develop the mainstream like Tourism. So we are also working in the potential we have,” Davies Steven says.

He added: “I’m happy to see the wholesale of betelnut now, commercialise betelnut and put a policy on it so that we will export betelnut.

“Our vision is not to have an empty plane landing here and empty plane taking off. We want to be the only airstrip in the country that is full coming, full going out.

Nearly a million kina has been invested into the airstrip upgrading which is supported by Minister Steven as well as the Provincial Government.

Land clearing will continue in the area as well as the development of airport infrastructure.

Steven aims to make Esa’ala an economic hub in Milne Bay.