Looks like we might see Air Austral coming to the US.

Air Austral (UU, St. Denis de la Réunion) has applied to the US Department of Transportation (DOT) for exemption authority and a Foreign Air Carrier Permit (FACP) ahead of plans to start commercial flights to the United States.

The application states the Indian Ocean-based carrier plans to use its fleet of B777s and B787s to operate charter flights to the US ferrying persons, property, and mail. No further details were disclosed.

Source
http://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/ ... er-flights

Nonstop to Réunion?! No thanks...That's 16:22 from JFK, 17:32 from ATL, and 17:09 from CLT.
Adds about 2.5 from ATL and CLT and 2 from JFK to the already long trek to Jo'burg.
(using the cruising speed of the 788 and http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=ATL-JNB%2C ... 85&SU=mach)
I can't imagine many people want to go to RUN either from the states....Don't most RUN pax either go to ZA or back to Metropolitan France?

This is all about Air Austral being able to bid and operate various charters including scheduled sub-services between EU and US.

Look at Air Tahiti Nui which keep 1 A340 frame for such random activity.

ahj2000 wrote:

Nonstop to Réunion?! No thanks...That's 16:22 from JFK, 17:32 from ATL, and 17:09 from CLT.
Adds about 2.5 from ATL and CLT and 2 from JFK to the already long trek to Jo'burg.
(using the cruising speed of the 788 and http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=ATL-JNB%2C ... 85&SU=mach)
I can't imagine many people want to go to RUN either from the states....Don't most RUN pax either go to ZA or back to Metropolitan France?

Their 787s are terrible teen -8s so I doubt they would even make that...

PHBVF wrote:

ahj2000 wrote:

Nonstop to Réunion?! No thanks...That's 16:22 from JFK, 17:32 from ATL, and 17:09 from CLT.
Adds about 2.5 from ATL and CLT and 2 from JFK to the already long trek to Jo'burg.
(using the cruising speed of the 788 and http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=ATL-JNB%2C ... 85&SU=mach)
I can't imagine many people want to go to RUN either from the states....Don't most RUN pax either go to ZA or back to Metropolitan France?

Their 787s are terrible teen -8s so I doubt they would even make that...

Any 787 and A350nonULR will struggle with US-RUN nonstop. JFK-RUN is over 500 miles longer than SIN-SFO... and JFK is one of the closer US airports to the island.

The Southern Indian Ocean is not the place to be if you want nonstop US flights:

I honestly always imagined UU performing tail ends to their CDG service.
Their aircraft are sometimes more than eight hours on the tarmac over there.

Should easily be enough to fly at least one London/Amsterdam/Frankfurt sector and pick up some additional passengers...

PHBVF wrote:

I honestly always imagined UU performing tail ends to their CDG service.
Their aircraft are sometimes more than eight hours on the tarmac over there.

Should easily be enough to fly at least one London/Amsterdam/Frankfurt sector and pick up some additional passengers...

They're even technically a French airline so they could just fly anything like a regular intra-Europe flight. Coudl pick up/drop off pax in EUR and not even take them to Réunion.

ahj2000 wrote:

PHBVF wrote:

I honestly always imagined UU performing tail ends to their CDG service.
Their aircraft are sometimes more than eight hours on the tarmac over there.

Should easily be enough to fly at least one London/Amsterdam/Frankfurt sector and pick up some additional passengers...

They're even technically a French airline so they could just fly anything like a regular intra-Europe flight. Coudl pick up/drop off pax in EUR and not even take them to Réunion.

My point exactly.

A widebody is necessary to fly Paris-RUN. That is way too big for profitable use on intra-EU flights for an airline like UU, especially as their planes have a very dense seating configuration to properly cater for the France-Reunion market. They would get killed by the other airlines that have better frequency, better costs, and better name recognition. Traffic to/from Reunion outside of France is also too minuscule to fill those tags. There is a reason why RUN only has nonstops to France in Europe.

Keep in mind we are talking about an airline that a few years ago was basically bankrupt and couldn't even afford the 77Ls that were built and ready to be delivered to them. They don't have a solid footing to go charging into other airline's territory.

Could Air Austral run RUN-CDG-JFK/EWR or MIA? That would help them serve the US as well as not be seen as a threat since they would go after the 2 gateways in Europe that have near limitless vacation demand.

Or 5th freedom via South Africa...

TWA772LR wrote:

Could Air Austral run RUN-CDG-JFK/EWR or MIA? That would help them serve the US as well as not be seen as a threat since they would go after the 2 gateways in Europe that have near limitless vacation demand.

Or 5th freedom via South Africa...

Yes, they are a French airline, with a French AOC and have access to the same bilateral agreements as, say Air France.

The question is, can they sell seats. I'd be willing to bet 98% of Americans have never even heard of Reunion, much less know where it is. There are dozens of vacation options that don't require a ULH flight.

mercure1 wrote:

This is all about Air Austral being able to bid and operate various charters including scheduled sub-services between EU and US.

Look at Air Tahiti Nui which keep 1 A340 frame for such random activity.

Shame everyone is talking about not this but Air Austral operating to the US from the Indian Ocean.

Last night (5/30, around 8pm CDT), saw an Air Austral 777-300ER (F-OLRD) fly into ORD. Not a usual visitor, and flight aware doesn't show the flight but flightradar24 does (seems like it's still at ORD as of 10am CDT on 5/31), flew in as flight #50. Since it's one of their newest 777s, is this one of these new charters?

If they have slack in their fleet, this makes it optimal to make use of it in the event that an airline needs to lift. A classic example of this has been airlines like Norwegian who has a small fleet of 787s for long haul ops. When an aircraft goes tech, they are limited in what they can find to offer sub service. In addition, you have companies like Apple Vacations and others that will charter the aircraft and crew to operate routes from the US to vacation destinations, I think that's more what they are looking into.

hoya wrote:

Last night (5/30, around 8pm CDT), saw an Air Austral 777-300ER (F-OLRD) fly into ORD. Not a usual visitor, and flight aware doesn't show the flight but flightradar24 does (seems like it's still at ORD as of 10am CDT on 5/31), flew in as flight #50. Since it's one of their newest 777s, is this one of these new charters?

Left around 9:30 this evening headed for Stockholm. One member of the Chicagoland Aviation Spotters Facebook page said that it was a charter for State Farm. Pretty sweet.

Where does it state they want to fly non-stop? It doesn't. It would make perfect sense they'd operate through France.

.... I think they don't even have flights to South America?

SFOATLFlyer wrote:

Where does it state they want to fly non-stop? It doesn't. It would make perfect sense they'd operate through France.

It seems as if they just wanted to ability to pick up charter flying to/from the U.S., e.g., flying a State Farm charter ORD-ARN.

ahj2000 wrote:

I can't imagine many people want to go to RUN either from the states....Don't most RUN pax either go to ZA or back to Metropolitan France?

Yes the market from the U.S. is small but you'd be surprised at how many pax EK and QR are taking from BOS/JFK to places like the Maldives, Zanzibar, and Seychelles.

Actually, as it is a chartered operation instead of scheduled operation, does the nationality origin of the airline even matter? I mean, for instance, I have seen on flight tracking site a Uzbekistan 737 being chartered to fly between NGO and (FAI/ANC?) with a fuel stop at PKC, can Air Austral do something similar like flying US tour groups to EZE?