[Trvlr]

Will never fly Air Pacific again - I don't care if the price is double on every other airline - it is the national airline of Fiji, and even the natives aptly refer to it as "Air Pathetic". Flew Air Pacific from Sydney to Nadi in October 08. I was told before departing that I had to purchase a ticket for outbound travel to enter Fiji by an obnoxious Fijian clerk named Luisa, and was directed to the Qantas desk for purchase (Qantas owns approx. half of Air Pacific). When I informed her that I had already visited the Fiji immigration web site, had a copy of their policies with me, I could prove enough funds (had a bank statement with me for said purpose) and that she was just trying to bully me into providing her company with more profit, and demanded to see her superior, she first claimed she was with Fijian immigration, then claimed there was no one above her, then yelled to no one in particular that I couldn't board the plane as she spun away from the counter as I stated something like "Now you've chosen to impersonate the CEO of Air Pacific as well as a Fijian immigration officer?" Meanwhile, I am missing the flight I paid for. This is a common tactic among airport employees now: they abuse and stonewall customers until the customer reacts, then they call security. When I was about to call security myself, another male employee showed me the guidelines on his computer screen, supposedly supplied by Fijian immigration, and told me those were the guidelines they had to go by. These guidelines stated that the airline had to insure that I had purchased a ticket out of Fiji, AND prove funds. For obvious reasons this is absolutely ludicrous (I am a US citizen with a US passport, the sunglasses I was wearing were worth more than the average Fijian makes in a month, the laptop I was carrying was worth almost 3 YEARS salary of the average Fijian, and the bank account record I had ON HAND which they NEVER CHECKED showed 4 TIMES that amount). However, if I wanted to be allowed to board my flight, I had to purchase a ticket from Qantas. As there was no time left to play around with the airline employees, I did (which was supposed to be fully refundable within 5 days of request - it wasn't, and on a side note, Qantas has seen my last dime as well). To make a long story short, no one at Air Pacific ever made me prove funds, even though I was prepared to, and supposedly was as mandatory a requirement as the ticket for outbound travel, revealing the blatant scam they were running. The ego-maniac Luisa held up an entire flight with her control-freak greedy antics and I didn't have enough time to claim over $250 US GST credit on a laptop I purchased in Australia, and was harassed by incompetent, abusive Sydney airport personnel because of my late boarding - so much so that Australia won't get another penny from me either. When I arrived in Fiji, I immediately went to an immigration officer and asked if she wanted to see my outbound ticket and/or proof of funds. She did not, she did not care if I had either, and told me that technically a passenger must have EITHER of the two or the airline COULD be fined, but BOTH were NOT required, and that any employee of Air Pacific should know this well, and should also know that these items were seldom if ever checked by Fijian immigration, as Fiji is desperately in need of tourist dollars - in fact, NO ONE on my flight or any other I witnessed was checked. One other person was staying at my hotel, and he flew on Air New Zealand - they didn't check or care if he had an outbound ticket (which he didn't) or if he could prove funds (which he couldn’t). I tried to file a formal complaint with a human being at Air Pacific numerous times and was met with nothing but lip service. I spoke to a customer service rep in Nadi and told her not to take my word on what went on, just get the security camera tapes from the Sydney airport, and she claimed they weren't available and that I needed to write down all that happened and submit it to her - on my vacation in Fiji!!! I was later told by a pilot of Air Pacific in Nadi that the "Air Pathetic" moniker is well deserved, that he was only working for the airline because the hiring practices were looser than others and needed the flight time, my complaint would be among hundreds and would be ignored by whoever I submitted it to anyway, and added "Why do you think so few airlines are allowed to fly out of Nadi? If the competition were any greater, Air Pathetic would be out of business." I spoke with employees at the Nadi airport and some of them knew Luisa - a word that rhymes with "itch" was used several times and the futility of any complaint to the airline was echoed. I decided to wait until I returned to the US and speak to an attorney about filing a discrimination/fraud lawsuit against Air Pacific/Qantas - if I had to write a report about what happened and re-live the nightmare I was going to do it for a reason - and discovered because of legal jurisdictions it would be expensive and not very productive, as witnesses/corroborating evidence would be just as scarce as the Sydney security camera tapes. I was told the best course of action was to never give my money to either airline again, report this incident online and to anyone who asks personally for the welfare of other travelers, and let Air Pacific go under along with the nebulous government of Fiji (which owns approx. 50% of the airline) and the tourist trade there, which is down well over 60 percent (with good reason; I found the local businesses to be as unscrupulous, greedy, and negligent as this airline), and that is exactly what I am doing.