The Papua New Guinea Prime Minister has expressed  his opposition to a merger between state owned Air Niugini and independent competotor Airlines PNG.
Sir Michael Somare, who is the Prime Minister and the minister directly responsible for Air Niugini, was responding to suggestions for a merger amid concerns at the competitive impact of Qantas flying into the nations's capital Port Moresby from Cairns. Qantas entered the PNG market last month hoping to capitalise on the country’s ExxonMobil-led Liquefied Natural Gas project. Sir Michael welcomes the competition and says he believes a merger is not in the national and public interest. He also cites Airlines PNG’s low profitability, its reliance on charters to mining projects and its poor safety record against that of Air Niugini, which has never had an accident.

Since the Qantas flights started, APNG has reduced its once daily Cairns-Port Moresby service to only twice weekly. Qantas also has a codeshare agreement with state-owned national airline Air Niugini on flights from Port Moresby to  Sydney and Brisbane.  Air Niugini CEO Wasantha Kumarasiri has also that said that a merger was not under consideration. "

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