Review of Air Tahiti flight Bora Bora → Rangiroa in Economy

could it be more magical?

Hello fellow travellers. Today I will be reporting this flight out of a couple i took during my stay in this heaven on Earth called French Polynesia!

THe sad thing is I have a lot of pictures of my stay but little of the flights themselves; as they were very short (most of them like 30 min).

 
  The tour was as follow:
MAR 01OCT 19
AIR TAHITI 730 S APPAREIL-AT4 / NONSTOP /
DEPART: PAPEETE, SOC. IS., FR. POLYNES 1315 TERMINAL: D1
ARRIVEE: MAUPITI, SOCIETY IS., FR. POLY 1410
*** CONFIRME ***
VEN 04OCT 19
AIR TAHITI 733 S APPAREIL-AT4 / NONSTOP /
DEPART: MAUPITI, SOCIETY IS., FR. POLY 1510
ARRIVEE: RAIATEA, SOC. IS., FR. POLYNES 1530
*** CONFIRME ***
MAR 08OCT 19
AIR TAHITI 365 S APPAREIL-ATR72/ NONSTOP /
DEPART: RAIATEA, SOC. IS., FR. POLYNES 1735
ARRIVEE: HUAHINE, SOC. IS., FR. POLYNES 1755
*** CONFIRME ***
VEN 11OCT 19
AIR TAHITI 268 S APPAREIL-ATR72/ NONSTOP /
DEPART: HUAHINE, SOC. IS., FR. POLYNES 0935
ARRIVEE: BORA BORA, SOC. IS., FR. POLYN 1000
*** CONFIRME ***
LUN 14OCT 19
AIR TAHITI 458 S APPAREIL-ATR72/ NONSTOP /
DEPART: BORA BORA, SOC. IS., FR. POLYN 1345
ARRIVEE: RANGIROA, FR. POLYNESIA 1455
*** CONFIRME ***
VEN 18OCT 19
AIR TAHITI 550 S APPAREIL-ATR72/ NONSTOP /
DEPART: RANGIROA, FR. POLYNESIA 1500
ARRIVEE: TIKEHAU, FR. POLYNESIA 1520
*** CONFIRME ***
MAR 22OCT 19
AIR TAHITI 502 S APPAREIL-ATR72/ STOP-1/
DEPART: TIKEHAU, FR. POLYNESIA 1215
ARRIVEE: PAPEETE, SOC. IS., FR. POLYNES 1405 TERMINAL: D1
*** CONFIRME *** 

When you are in Polyneisa, everything is way more relaxed than at the mainland and so you can just comfortably book your seat the the airport, which, most of the times; is located on a beach!

Air Tahiti mostly uses ATRs and so for this flight, this was an ATR72. 

At bora bora airport

As mentionned; the airport is located on a coral reef of the island; and to reach the platform you first need to arrive by… boat!!

Once at the airport you just show your inter-islands pass and the staff checks in your luggages and checks your boarding pass.

Most of the time the security is minimal and your passeport not required as these are domestic flights.

Boarding procedure is pretty straight forward as there is only (to our knowledge) one plane at a time! 

on board the ATR72

The ATR72 were fairly new and very comfy onbaord. The ATR72-600 are more noise isolated aircrafts, compares to previous versions.

Aircraft: Airbus ATR72-600
Registration: F-ORVR
Engines: 2x PW127
Age: 2 Years
Layout: Y68
Observations:  Named Tapuata

The AvGEEK bit

Air Tahiti is a regional airline, operating in French Polynesia since 1950 (it was at some point part of UTA, bought by Air France and sold back to private investors in 1987). The particularity of Air Tahiti is that is covers a network as bit as Europe (5,500,000 square kilometres), the closest destination to the hub being Moorea (7min flight time) and the furthest Mangareva takes 3h30 min to reach. The airline has an all ATR fleet (2 ATR42s, 3 ATR72-500s and 6 new ATR72-600s) due to the small runways (some of them less than 1,200m long), small airports of the islands (some of them are not equipped with Night landings lights nor ILS…), small fuel tanks at some airfields (the ATR is less fuel greedy than jets as it is a propeller) and for all these reasons, the airline choose this aircraft as has a similar capacity as regional jets. Air Tahiti is mandated by the French central government to operate as many flights as possibles to develop the links and economy of Polynesia - and probably for this reason, has a code share policy with Air France. 

The crew started a very very quick on board service as we almost started our descent after take off!

AT RANGIROA airport

Like at departure, the airport was close to the beach!
The whole unbaording and getting your luggage is again extremly fast which is really appreciated!