Air Tahiti aircraft Photo: AFP
A strike at Air Tahiti strike has spread to other companies in French Polynesia, which further hampers air travel.
Flights have been cut for two weeks now and as redunancies are likely, more employees of related industries have joined the strike, which has affected the entire archipelago.
Publisher of Tahiti Pacifique magazine Alex du Prel claims the unions are causing the stoppages to show the power they have on the economy.
He says employment rates are low at the moment and tourism is heavily relied on to create jobs.
"It has quite some effect on tourism everybody flies to Tahiti and then they fly on to Bora Bora, Rangiroa, Marquesas so when you block the centre you block everything. It's very apparent what the unions are doing they're expanding and trying to sabotage the economy."
'We are in a dire crisis in French Polynesia, we have a very large part of the population unemployed. We have the people who have the chance to have employment strike so you know. It's more a union thing, a power play between the union and the govenmment. It has quite some effect on tourism I don't think it's going to do much good,." he said.
An Air Tahiti plane Photo: Wikimedia Commons