Air Tahiti Nui’s Mysterious One Off Flight From Dallas To Tahiti

Air Tahiti Nui’s Mysterious One Off Flight From Dallas To Tahiti

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There are few things in life I love more than random, one-off flights. For example, I had booked myself on a mysterious Qatar Airways A350 flight before the inaugural flight even occurred, which they apparently never intended to sell. Unfortunately that didn’t end all that well for me. But I had fun nonetheless!

Here’s an equally puzzling, though perhaps not quite as exciting, flight.

Air Tahiti Nui seems to be running a one off flight from Dallas to Papeete on July 9, 2015.

DFWPPT

It’s not unusual for airlines to have charter flights, though what makes this especially odd is that:

  • The flight is wide open for bookings, and there are at least seven business class and seven economy class award seats
  • I can’t actually find an Air Tahiti Nui flight to Dallas, so I’m curious how the plane gets there

Air-Tahiti-Nui

Air Tahiti Nui partners with both American AAdvantage and Delta SkyMiles, so in theory you can redeem miles for that flight. While I haven’t ticketed a reservation on the flight yet, I was able to hold a business class award seat on that flight through American AAdvantage.

It’s unusual to see more than two business class award seats per Air Tahiti Nui flight, so this is a great way to fly your entire family to Tahiti… one way. 😉

Do keep in mind that even Air Tahiti Nui’s new business class product is angled, so this perhaps isn’t the most aspirational product in the world.

Air-Tahiti-Nui-Business-Class

Still, it’s a pretty cool one-off flight, if you ask me!

Anyone have any theories as to what this flight is intended to be, or how they’re positioning the plane to Dallas?

(Tip of the hat to Tocqueville and millionmiler on FlyerTalk)

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  1. Dennis New Member

    My friend is on that flight. There is apparently a group of 40 families from Dallas going to Tahiti!

  2. Ryan Guest

    I just saw the A340 sitting at the Dgates at DFW wishing so much that I was getting on it !!! Looked great in their paint sheme with the sunset behind it

  3. Max Johnson Guest

    This could be the other "half" of a charter to/from a cruise ... there may be another errant leg in the opposite direction a week or two earlier/leter

  4. Adam New Member

    Just heard back from Air Tahiti. Its a special Charter flight and no paid or award tickets are allowed. They are going to cancel my current award tickets.

  5. Adam New Member

    I put 3 tickets on hold using miles through AA. Didnt have enough miles to book the 4th so trying to buy through ATN. The agent cannot confirm this flight so she is going to call me back after she talks to her manager. More to come...

  6. G Guest

    It's definitely loaded in the gds both ways. Tn operated and marketed, no codeshares. My guess is there's some sort occasion its catering to like the recent qf flights per-saw for Anzac day. It quotes up no worries in L class at $2657 (Aud) or $6821 in Z (business). It's an a340 so no controversy there.

  7. Kyle Guest

    My guess is that some sort of charter is arriving in Dallas on the 9th and those passengers head back to wherever they came from on the 21st. In the mean time, the aircraft needs to get back to Tahiti, so they might as well sell the seats. TN is allowed to fly from the US to mainland France and charters between the 2 are very common that time of year.

  8. Ivan Member

    Spent all my miles, no visa, and their paid business class rate is outrageous....

  9. techoin Guest

    nonstop return PPT-DFW is available on 21st July

  10. greg99 Gold

    Ben -

    Do you think maybe that they just put that flight up to show intention to operate the service in connection with their application to the FAA re: code-sharing (although the agreement doesn't say anything about DFW-PPT)?

    http://airlineinfo.com/ostpdf92/918.pdf

    I wouldn't book any nonrefundable hotels if you decide to book that flight, though...

    Greg

  11. PainCorp Guest

    @Chitown - Touche, missed that. I know the had an aircraft damaged recently, but it was in NAN.

  12. KG Member

    Lucky, where do you look for availability of award seats other than Expertflyer?

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ KG -- For Air Tahiti Nui? That's the only good place to search that I know of.

  13. Travis Swanson Member

    Book it Lucky! Excited to see how this works out.

  14. Chitown Guest

    @PainCorp it's and A343 so I don't think the plane was delivered new from Airbus.

  15. PainCorp Guest

    @laptoptravel That doesn't mean anything. You can't "loan metal" like that, and there's no AA number attached to this flight.

    I wonder if TN is due to take delivery and this is the route it's taking from Toulouse where it's made?

  16. Jonathan New Member

    Maybe it was in the US for some sort of maintenance?

  17. PainCorp Guest

    @laptoptravel - That's an AA codeshare. TN doesn't fly A321s.

    @Lucky - I think this is the same thing as Qatar. Doesn't seem there are any fares loaded for this flight, but since inventory is open so are awards and those fares are airlines determined. Might be fun for you to book to see what happens.

  18. laptoptravel Guest

    @Mike -

    I am suggesting that Air Tahiti Nui may be loaning that metal for one segment for their partner AAL

  19. Mike Guest

    @laptoptravel That's just a perfectly ordinary AA flight with a TN codeshare for connecting passengers.

  20. corridor! Guest

    This isn't the only ghost flight I have seen. I recently booked a trip to PPT and came across this same thing. A flight with 7 business class seats. I even called AA and they could it see it too.

    Not sure what it means but the flights I saw were from LAX to PPT.

  21. laptoptravel Guest

    Lucky -

    http://flightaware.com/live/flight/THT1181

    Shows activity between LAX & DFW

  22. Noah Sprenger Guest

    I think there are several ways that they may have positioned the plane, and I have on idea as to why they are doing the one off: to sample the market because they may begin a new route if the turnout is good.

    They probably positioned the plane there: A. From one of their u.s destinations. B. As a charter from Tahiti and a regular flight back. C. They flew the damn thing all the way from tahiti.

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Dennis New Member

My friend is on that flight. There is apparently a group of 40 families from Dallas going to Tahiti!

0
Ryan Guest

I just saw the A340 sitting at the Dgates at DFW wishing so much that I was getting on it !!! Looked great in their paint sheme with the sunset behind it

0
Max Johnson Guest

This could be the other "half" of a charter to/from a cruise ... there may be another errant leg in the opposite direction a week or two earlier/leter

0
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