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 (…)