La Réunion seeks new unions

“We feel India is a good potential market and we would like to add another hub to improve our connectivity into Africa,” explained Karine Duclos, marketing & communications director at Reunion Roland Garros, speaking to African Aerospace at the Routes Asia airline-airport networking event in Perth in late March.

At present, the only route from La Réunion to Africa is a twice-weekly Air Austral service to Johannesburg.

Reunion Roland Garros was exhibiting at the event to boost airline awareness of the opportunities to serve the volcanic island of La Réunion which is located 700km east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean and is governed as a French department.

In 2024 the airport handled 2.7 million passengers with some 60% of the traffic coming from the four carriers operating up to eight daily flights to French cities while there are strong traffic flows to nearby Mauritius and other Indian Ocean countries.

“It is great that we have a strong backbone with the French market, and this recovered fast after Covid because La Réunion was seen as a safe destination, but we also want to diversify and promote the huge tourism potential of our island to attract more international airlines,” said Duclos.

One recent success is the growth of Air Austral’s route from La Réunion to Bangkok and the onward connections to south-east Asia that service offers. Air Austral carried 74,000 passengers on the route last year a hike of 45% compared to 2023.

The carrier added a third weekly frequency to Bangkok in December 2024 and upgraded the aircraft used from a 262-seat Boeing 787-8 to a 442-seat 777-300ER.