Solomon Airlines has apologised to passengers for disruptions to some domestic flights due to a delay in scheduled maintence of one of the airline’s Twin Otter aircraft.

The Twin Otter HA-OTA has been out of service for a planned engine change and scheduled maintenance for the past week.

Whilst being attended to swiftly by the Solomon Airlines engineering team, the first replacement engine was considered unsuitable and a replacement engine was requested from the supplier.

Once received from the supplier the Solomon Airlines engineers will work to have the plane back into operation by Monday 24th July.

Solomon Airlines said some flights have been affected by the maintenance delay and as a result the airline has cancelled a small number of flights, reaccommodating passengers onto next available services. The airline has also created extra flights to cater for passenger requirements.

“We apologise to anyone aho has been inconvenienced, however this delay has inevitably created disruption for our planned scheduled services with our Twin Otters,” said Solomon Airlines CEO Mr Gus Kraus.

“An engine change is obviously a planned major maintenance event and safety is our number one priority. The second replacement engine has arrived & we will work as swiftly as possible over the weekend to complete this work and returm the aircraft into service by Monday 24 July” he said.