Air Tahiti will wet lease two DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft from the Swiss operator Zimex Aviation to operate two routes to the Marquesas Islands.
Air Tahiti (VT) will wet lease two DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft to operate air services to two destinations in the Marquesas Islands. The decision stems from a report by the French Polynesian civil aviation regulator, which deemed it too risky to serve the two routes with single-engine aircraft. Let's look closer at the details of this story.
When it comes to flying relatively long distances between two cities, passengers might feel safer on a two-engine aircraft than a single-engine one, especially if the plane flies over the sea.
The French Polynesian civil aviation regulator had the same thought regarding two routes currently operated by Tahiti Air Charter. The airline regularly flies the single-engine Cessna Caravans from Papeete to two islands of the Marquesas group of islands, namely Ua Pou and Ua Huka. However, the French Polynesian government has decided to hand over the routes to Air Tahiti, which will wet lease two De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters to serve these destinations.
The lessor will be the Swiss operator Zimex Aviation and services will operate five times weekly, starting mid-November. According to the deal signed by the French Polynesian Vice President, Jean Christophe Bouissou, and the CEO of Air Tahiti, Manate Vivish, Zimex Aviation will operate the two routes until 2026.
Zimex Aviation operating the two routes is positive news for the passengers but not for the government, which will suffer financially for handing the routes to Air Tahiti and, thus, to the Swiss wet lease operator.
However, the government has a plan in sight. By 2026, when the deal with Zimex Aviation comes to an end, the government will have upgraded the runways of Ua Pou and Ua Huka. Then, Air Tahiti will replace the Twin Otter with the new Italo-French ATR 42-600S aircraft, where "S" stands for "short". The ATR 42-600S is the latest variant of the ATR 42-600, and it is currently under development.
The new regional plane is the perfect solution for Air Tahiti to safely operate to Ua Pou and Ua Huka because, as the noun suggests, it can take off and land on runways as short as 800 meters. Indeed, the runway in Ua Pou is 830 meters long, while that of Ua Huka is even shorter, with 755 meters.
Air Tahiti is a regional, commuter carrier whose main operational hub is Papeete Faa'a airport (PPT). Its business model leverages the geography of its home country, offering an extensive intra-island hopping network counting 30 destinations across French Polynesia.
Manate Vivish, the carrier's CEO, stated Air Tahiti is experiencing a robust post-pandemic recovery in domestic passenger traffic, forecasting a total number of passengers for 2022 of approximately 900,000 people, which equals the airline's pre-COVID passenger volumes.
According to ch-aviation, the airline's current fleet counts ten aircraft. Of these, one is inactive, and one is wet-leased; both planes are ATR 72-600s. The remaining eight include two ATR 42-600 and six ATR 72-600. The fleet's age averages 7.7 years, and the nine owned aircraft have an estimated value of 85.72 million USD. Air Tahiti also has two ATR 42-600S aircraft on order, the first of which should be delivered in 2025.
Simple Flying reached out to Air Tahiti for further comment. We will update the article with any additional announcements from the airline.
Writer - Giacomo has almost two years of experience as an aviation reporter. At the University of Surrey, he pursued a master's in Air Transport Management during the academic year 2021/2022. His main areas of expertise include network and fleet planning, airline partnerships, aviation finance, and airline strategy. Currently based in Italy.
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