In April 2009, when Air Austral opened the Paris-Sydney route via La Réunion Island and Nouméa, the Reunion-based airline opened a new route in the South. It was the brainchild of Paul Vergès and Gérard Éthève. These two Réunionese succeeded in putting La Réunion Island on the world map, as a stopover between Europe, southern Africa, Asia and now Oceania.
The idea was born in 2006, when “we realized that there was a demand and that we needed to set up a tailor-made service”, declared Gérard Éthève three years later, on the occasion of the first scheduled flight between Paris and Sydney via La Réunion. Air Mauritius had already been doing this for 25 years.
Air Austral’s management had identified a potential of 35,000 French-speaking passengers in Sydney, 95,000 passengers in the Australia-France direction and a potential of 400,000 connecting passengers to other destinations,” said Gérard Éthève.
Added to this was the potential for 100,000 Mauritians in Australia. With the withdrawal of Air Mauritius from Australia in 2009, Air Austral offered Mauritian emigrants a faster alternative: a flight with a stopover in La Réunion rather than a stopover in London, Europe.

Air Austral the only airline to link Europe to Australia via the Indian Ocean in 2009

Air Austral’s route between Paris and Sydney covered more than 18,000 kilometers in 28 hours. It was the longest scheduled air service in the world.
It was launched at a time when Air Mauritius had to withdraw from Australia, discontinuing its Mauritius-Sydney, Mauritius-Melbourne and Mauritius-Peth routes.
Unfortunately, when Didier Robert took over as President of Air Austral in 2012, one of his first decisions was to cancel the La Réunion-Nouméa-Sydney route, which connects with the Paris-La Réunion service. Since then, our island has been cut off from Australia.
Air Mauritius has now taken up the torch, filling the void left by the disappearance of Air Austral on this route between Africa and Oceania.
Air Mauritius recalls the accuracy of Paul Vergès and Gérard Éthève’s vision.
The Mauritian airline operates a route linking Mauritius airport to Perth, the capital of Australia’s east coast. It offers travelers from this Australian airport a stopover in Mauritius on their way to Europe, rather than via Asia or the Middle East.
Ile Maurice Tourisme highlights Mauritius’ tourist attractions as a comparative advantage to stopovers in Asia or the Middle East.

Trip is part of the vacation

These advantages are designed to compensate for longer journey times.
In this idea, the trip is part of the vacation. A day’s break in Mauritius on the way to or from Australia is what sets the Mauritius proposal apart from traditional routes. And this is what could fill Air Mauritius’ planes between Europe and Australia via Mauritius.
La Réunion Island also has these advantages. The Air Austral route also offered an alternative to connections in Asia for passengers wishing to travel to Kanaky New Caledonia from Paris. But Didier Robert and the team formed around a former Air France executive lacked the vision of development that the Mauritians intend to bring to fruition.
This shows the gap between the dynamism of the Mauritians and the immobility of part of La Reunion’s ruling and political class, which is essentially oriented towards Paris rather than the world.

M.M.