What's more, Reunion's airline is breaking new ground by planning to use the very wide-bodied aircraft in a "single class" configuration, giving it a capacity of 840 passengers per flight, something totally unprecedented for an A380.
The new aircraft are due to join Air Austral's fleet in 2014 and will eventually be used by a low-cost subsidiary, currently called Outre mer 380. Last May, Air Austral added two new Boeing 777-300ERs to its fleet.
These spectacular capacity increases confirm the ambitions of an airline whose 2008-2009 financial year ended with a 6 % increase in turnover and a net profit before tax of 12.8 million euros. Air Austral already boasts a market share of 34 % on the Paris-La Réunion route, and last April launched a new Paris-Sydney-Nouméa route. This will further strengthen the international network of a carrier which, in addition to its routes to Saint-Denis from mainland France (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse) already offers extensions to Madagascar, Mayotte, the Comoros, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Johannesburg and Bangkok.
