Mr. Gérard Ethève is Air Austral's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. Air Austral, the "French Airline of the Indian Ocean", has more than 30 years experience linking the French island of Réunion with its neighbours Mayotte, Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa and France. In April 2009, Air Austral commenced services to Sydney, offering a twice weekly service between Sydney and Réunion.

African Aviation: How has the recent economic crisis affected Air Austral?. Air Austral reported € 5.7 million profit for 2009 one of the worst years for the aviation industry. What is the secret for such a good result?

Gérard Ethève: Air Austral has not been so much impacted by the economic crisis.This is mainly due to the fact that our main mission consists in connecting France mainland to one of its region –La Reunion-located in the Indian Ocean .The major part of Air Austral business is therefore VFR (visit friend and relatives). Consequently ,cancellation of bookings have been much less important than what has happened for destinations essentially touristic.

African Aviation: Turning to the year ahead, what is your outlook on the potential recovery?. What lessons have been learned from the economic crisis of the past 12 months? 

Gérard Ethève: The global economical crisis which impacts also the air transportation industry reminds us that this sector is heavily influenced by external factors upon which an airline has very little control and can impact negatively its results: the  fuel price  and the currency exchange rate versus the US dollar. In the airline business a sensible amount of the costs are invoiced in US dollar. As far as the Euro is concerned , we do not foresee an improvement of its parity versus the US dollar any time soon .

African Aviation: How do you see your domestic and international route network evolving in the coming year?

Gérard Ethève: Overall traffic will grow but competition will also increase. We will have to be vigilant ,and sometimes aggressive in order to defend our market share. The results of the Paris-Reunion-Sydney-Noumea route opened in April 2009 are encouraging and we believe that the traffic on this route will continue to increase in a very satisfactory manner. We are presently working in building more connectivity to our regional flights in the West of the Indian Ocean in our Saint Denis hub.

African Aviation: Where would you like Air Austral to be in five years from now? 

Gérard Ethève: We are presently working on a China route and we believe we will be able to create a new flow of traffic within five years. There is in La Reunion a Chinese community present since since the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century which is very active . This community has maintained strong links with their families of origin and wishes to enhance cultural and economical relationships with this huge country.

Today , we serve Bangkok twice weekly on a code share basis with Air Madagascar and with our own aircrafts during high peak season ie school vacations on a weekly basis

African Aviation: What are you most concerned with in terms of future challenges? 

Gérard Ethève: Air Austral management is working presently on the introduction in 2014 of two A380 densified between Paris and La Reunion. These two aircrafts will be operated on a low cost basis through a new subsidiary of Air Austral.. An important amount of domestic traffic with a strong elasticity to price exist between mainland France and Reunion. It is therefore of utmost importance to fulfill the transportation needs at the best possible price. The two Airbus A380 ordered will be equipped with 826 seats and we believe that this density will also enable us to decrease the actual cost of a ticket between La Reunion and France mainland by 25 to 30% .

African Aviation: How are you controlling the costs?

Gérard Ethève: To the best of our ability taking into account that a large amount of our costs are beyond our control as Jet fuel ,currency exchange rate …

African Aviation: The issue of aviation and the environment is not going away. Does the industry have the right strategy for the years ahead?

Gérard Ethève: There is not really an alternative for the next twenty years to the use of Jet fuel in the air transport industry. It is therefore a consumption choice: are the thousands of vacation travellers ready to change their needs in order to limit fossil energy usage ?

African Aviation: The European agency recently announced the list or airlines banned from the European airspace due to safety concerns. Thirteen of the 17 countries affected by the ban are from Africa. What needs to be done to improve safety in Africa?

Gérard Ethève: European safety and security regulations are pretty drastic. The African states involved in the sanctions have to be much more demanding in terms of safety and security with their airlines. This is the price to pay in order to gain access to the european airspace.

African Aviation: Air Austral recently announced Bordeaux and Nantes as new destinations for 2011. Why those cities?

Gérard Ethève: Air Austral does not have interline agreements with other airlines which could provide to its clientele easy connections in Charles de Gaulle airport to various provincial cities in France mainland. A recent market survey has highlighted the potential of traffic between these two France mainland cities and La Reunion. Because we allways

African Aviation: We are particularly interested in your Boeing 777 fleet. How is this type performing in a company like Air Austral?

Gérard Ethève: The Boeing 777 is one of the best aircraft available today for the type of long haul route we operate in terms of reliability and profitability. The various versions available enable us to cover our needs in a very comprehensive manner.

African Aviation: Why should our readers do business with Air Austral?

Gérard Ethève: Because we do pay very close attention to our on board service standards . We were very pleased recently to discover that the Air Valid internet site (www.air-valid.com) has ranked us 8th airlines amongst 74 surveyed . It is for us a huge satisfaction.

We would like to thank Air Austral and Mr. Gérard Ethève for his cooperation. For further information about Air Austral visit www.air-austral.com