Editor,

When the dust settles spare a thought for the crushed dreams and ambition of the connections and staff of Fly Niu Ltd., (FNL) ...– a little start-up airline forced into voluntary liquidation due to a patently flawed monopoly policy.

You will recall that FNL disagreed vociferously with monopoly policy in principal for the very same reason(s) that GOT now sees fit to expunge.

Veracity of monopoly policy was questionable from the very beginning given its political patronage and had FNL the chutzpah to contest monopoly application it would have been quickly ...“kicked to touch...” by the licensing authority given competing proprietorship interests.

The extraordinary fact is that the principals and investors of FNL were all Tongan (I repeat Tongan) with management comprising of Tongan pilots and a

Tongan aeronautical engineer, yet this team of young entrepreneurs were cruelly swept aside by its very own government not because they were a failure or had done something wrong but because they dared to succeed and compete against powerful interests.

This travesty should not be buried in the archives of Tongan history but remain a constant reminder of how hope and ambition was once wilfully and shamefully reduced by enterprise charged with true and fair governance of its people.

Wayne Madden

waynem [at] tpp [dot] ac [dot] nz