Aircalin Looks To Build Up Its New Paris Route

PERTH, Australia—Aircalin is planning to boost frequency on its one-stop Paris route later this year, after starting the service last year in response to a sudden demand and revenue crisis.

The New Caledonia carrier currently operates two flights per week to Paris via Bangkok, but intends to add a third in November or December, said William Le Grand, Aircalin’s chief commercial officer, during the Routes Asia conference here. This will make the route work better for the airline, he said.

The Noumea-Bangkok-Paris route was opened for sale in September and launched in December. The airline had advanced its plans to serve Paris as a way to inject revenue when it was forced to suspend other routes as a result of civil unrest in New Caledonia last year.

A period of violent protests that began in May 2024 caused Noumea’s airport to be closed for a month. When international flights resumed, demand was so low that traffic was only at 50% of levels before the closure, Le Grand says.

This put the carrier in “survival mode” and caused it to undertake a strategic review in July. One of its decisions was to suspend some routes, such as Melbourne and Tokyo, and cut frequencies elsewhere.

The carrier was also faced with the possibility of cutting up to 30% of its staff. But the plan to start the high-demand Paris route helped avoid reductions of this magnitude, Le Grand says.

Air Calin had been planning to offer flights to an intermediate point, to connect with a partner airline’s flights to Paris. However, Aircalin decided to try to use its spare capacity to fly its own aircraft onward to Paris, thereby retaining more of the revenue from the one-stop route.

The carrier currently has two Airbus A320neos and two A330neos in its fleet. It has two A350-900s on order, with one due in late 2026 and the second in 2028, Le Grand says. The carrier will likely keep one of the A330neos and sell the other, he adds.