Samoa Airways adds in-house B737-800

Samoa Airways (OL, Apia Faleolo) took delivery of its first in-house narrowbody jet, a B737-800, although it has yet to be registered and certified by authorities in Samoa.

2-BTTB (msn 42805), a 6.7-year-old unit owned by FLY Leasing and managed by BBAM, was ferried from Woensdrecht via Rotterdam, Hurghada, IATA!ZI, Hambantota, and Medan Kuala Namu to Brisbane Int’l over the course of July 21-25, 2021. The aircraft will undergo all pre-induction checks in Australia after which it will be registered as 5W-TFL. The Minister of Public Enterprises, Lautafi Fio Purcell, told the Samoa Observer in June that after registration, the aircraft would be ferried to Apia Faleolo where pilots and crew would undergo a two-week-long training programme ahead of its entry into service.

Samoa Airways originally planned to take delivery of the aircraft by mid-July. The state-owned carrier will only use it for cargo, repatriation, and medevac flights as nearly all international travel to and from Samoa remains banned to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to the largely unaffected Pacific island country.

The carrier used to operate a single B737-300 through 2001 under its previous corporate identity as Polynesian Airlines (OL, Apia Fagali’i), the ch-aviation fleets history module shows. However, since the airline’s partial privatisation and rebranding as Samoa Airways in a joint venture with Fiji Airways (FJ, Nadi) in 2017, it has not operated any in-house narrowbodies. Rather, it wet-leased a B737-800 from Neos and later Malindo Air (OD, Kuala Lumpur Int’l)-. The carrier has been planning to replace the wet-leased aircraft with in-house units at least since 2018 and signed a dry-lease commitment with Air Lease Corporation for a single B737-9 in early 2019. Following the grounding of the type in March 2019, it cancelled its plans to add the MAX, extended the wet leases, and eventually resolved to add an in-house B737NG.