[citation needed] Considerable alarm was expressed that these "jungle pilots" could not possibly operate large jet aircraft hitherto flown by Qantas flight crews.

By the end of 1975 Air Niugini leased Boeing 727-200 type aircraft from Ansett and TAA to serve routes to Brisbane.

The fleet of F-27s was phased out in the early 1980s with the introduction of the newly developed de Havilland Canada Dash 7 four-engine turbo-prop.

This was replaced several years later with two Airbus A310s as the carrier expanded to offer flights principally between Australian Eastern capital cities and destinations in Asia such as Singapore and Manila via their hub Port Moresby.

[citation needed] The airline endured considerable hardships in the 1990s, with unrest in Bougainville and a volcanic eruption in Rabaul destabilising the company's busiest domestic services.

A sharing agreement still exists with Qantas in which that airline buys "blocks" of seats on Air Niugini's flights between Port Moresby and Australia.

The financial turnaround seems to have stymied pressure from various sectors, including the IMF and the Australian Government, to privatise the national carrier.

The PNG government has voiced concerns that privatisation would jeopardise domestic routes that provide a vital service to regional people and encourage economic development, but which fail to realise a profit.

[citation needed] In March 2006, Transport and Civil Aviation Minister Don Polye announced an open air policy, which would allow other airlines to fly international routes into and from Papua New Guinea.

[14] Link PNG principally services routes to provincial and district centres which were being operated by the Air Niugini Dash-8-Q200 and Q300 aircraft.

They would fly via Port Moresby hoping to have considerable income derived from transporting live seafood to Asian markets.

[19] Air Niugini operates to 23 domestic destinations and eight international destinations in six countries across Asia and Oceania as of May 2023:[20][21] Air Niugini has codeshare agreements with the following airlines:[22] As of February 2025[update], the Air Niugini fleet consists of the following aircraft:[citation needed] As of February 2025[update], the Link PNG fleet consists of the following aircraft:[citation needed] Aircraft that have limited info:[35] On the morning of 28 September 2018, Flight PX 73[22] (operated by Boeing 737-800 P2-PXE) landed 150 yards (140 m) short of the runway into a lagoon off Chuuk International Airport in Weno, Chuuk of the Federated States of Micronesia.