Aircalin is the airline of New Caledonia, part of Overseas France. New Caledonia has been dealing with some civil unrest in recent months, which has caused demand for travel to New Caledonia to drop sharply. As a result, Aircalin is reworking its route network, and is getting creative.
Continue reading: Aircalin’s Intriguing Noumea To Paris A330neo Flights, Via Bangkok
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Aircalin is a great airline, but heaven help you if you need help with anything, and good luck in getting their attention if you need a refund. I had a booking SYD-NOU-SIN last July; flights were cancelled due to the unrest in New Caledonia. No SB office could help me - not in SYD, not in the US, nobody. They wanted a form filled out with a SWIFT code, OR a SWIFT *and* IBAN code, none of which are relevant for credit unions in the USA.
I finally called Amex. to intercede on my behalf; while it was too late to dispute the charge, they opened a case and SB didn't argue about it and I got the refund finally, but it was a PITA process.
Unrelated, but another noteworthy newsbreak is a new order of 85 Airbus aircraft from Air India, which hasn’t received a lot of attention given that the airline’s legendary owner Ratan Tata passed away some days back. Hopefully this is covered.
I flew SB J class SIN-NOU in March, the Biz Cabin needs a refresh: Lie-Flats not so comfortable, outdated.
Well technically the New Caledonia, Wallis and Fatuna and French Polynesia are overseas territories, just like Grand Cayman or BVI to UK. Now Guadalupe/Martinique Mayotte and Reunion are considered overseas departments which is the same status of any region in Metropolitan France.
Now St Pierre and Miquelon is just an overseas collective given it’s about 5K people
I will say that the new Intercontinental in Noumea has me intrigued though
The elephant in the room is geopolitical factors. I think if you stick with the 1990s mindset of open skies, the market is everything, the end of history, this move makes no sense. But in the current context of a new Cold War and New Caledonia’s strategic importance to France and how critical it is to maintain an unhindered air transport link between Paris and France’s Pacific territories for France itself, it’s another story.
Would it be 5th freedom? Isn’t it just France-BKK roundtrip? Just like flying a W route?
Yes, Paris is always a strong destination from the French colonies. France is the last big colonial power in the world, meaning the French live in some sort of parallel universe compared to the rest of us.
Now an A350-900URL would actually meet their demands of covering the 10.366 miles between Paris and New Caledonia, as its operating range is 11.163 miles. The question is whether this will be sufficient, though, as it seems that the nearest diversion airports would either be Brisbane or Fiji if landing in Noumea is impossible for whatever reason (civil unrest, bed weather, who knows?). One option would be to ask Airbus to look into an even more extended fuel tank option, another option would, given the expected demand, be a less dense configuration, resulting in a reduced payload and thus a possibly extended range. A more spacious experience would definitely be a reason for me to seriously consider them between Paris and Bangkok. Just a thought, though.
Instantly realizing my brainfart as the Paris-Bangkok leg will thus disappear when flying direct flights. Oh well...
SB is wholly unrealistic in its pricing strategy - I just picked random dates in January for BKK-CDG-BKK to see if they would be worth considering to Europe. Business class return for 15 Jan - 25 Jan is USD4,481! AY flies the route via HEL for USD2,100 (albeit basic business), and AF direct for USD2,676. QR is USD2,786. EK is USD3,231. And KL and LH are somewhere between QR and EK pricing.....as you can see, SB is the MOST expensive way to fly between Thailand and France, so if I were them I'd get back to the drawing board.
I can wait to see Aircalin fly to Bangkok and Paris.
Here is a catch
Noumea to Bangkok
The first flight will take 9hr and 50 mins
Bangkok to Paris
The second flight will take 12 hrs and 35 mins
It will be the same flight time to head back to Bangkok and Noumea. The journey will take 26 hours on a Airbus A330-900neo. It might be tough for Aircalin but I think it can do it.