PAPE’ETE (Pacnews) — French Polynesia’s Air Tahiti and Cook Islands’ Air Rarotonga have jointly announced the launch of a new regional route between the two countries.
The introduction of the new service follows Air New Zealand’s plan last year to scrap the Tahiti leg of its Auckland-Rarotonga-Pape’ete-Los Angeles long-haul route.
Since then, French Polynesia and the Cook Islands governments have been engaged in talks aimed at finding a solution to replace the scrapped leg that connects the two neighboring Polynesian countries.
Both companies have announced that the service would be provided bi-weekly by Air Tahiti, with the inaugural flight scheduled for April 3.
For the French Polynesian airline, which until now was dedicated to the domestic service, this is also a first in terms of international service.
Air Rarotonga managing director Ewan Smith said the agreement is timely given the circumstances and the very short notice.
”We will be working very hard to make this venture a complete success and we know that our colleagues at Air Tahiti are doing the same,” he told Cook Islands local media