Air Vanuatu Continues to Bring People Home

After the launch last week of Air Vanuatu’s international flight schedules for the border opening in July, the national airline re-confirms its commitment to bringing citizens home to Vanuatu.

“The Airline has capacity for more bookings to bring more returning citizens and residents home” confirms Chief Commercial Officer Greg Wilson.  Despite the COVID-19 restrictions and challenges, the team is focused on ensuring that the repatriation flights are a success.

The Air Vanuatu team has co-ordinated and liaised with the Ministry of Health and Foreign Affairs and relies on their partners who manage the approved traveller lists for both Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji and New Zealand. These Government partners managing the approval to travel are; the Vanuatu High Commissions in Wellington, Suva and Noumea and The Pacific Labour Scheme in Australia.

The Vanuatu Government gave Air Vanuatu approval for the repatriation schedule starting from May 2022. Returning flights earlier in April were only special flights approved by the Health Emergency Advisory Committee and Ministry of Health.

Despite the process being complex at the moment, the airline has successfully operated 3 repatriation flights since May approval. There are another 31 special repatriation flights available for returning citizens and residents between now and the end of June.

The airline offers flights for returning customers via the scheduled repatriation flights and also via dedicated charter flights for the RSE labour program. There have been 38 charter flights in the past 6 months. These have provided additional capacity for returning citizens and supports the nations labour mobility programs that are such a vital part of the economy for Ni-Vanuatu families with this current COVID-19 situation. The charter flights are organised by the labour mobility contracting companies and their travel agents, directly with the airlines charter team based in Port Vila.

All repatriation travellers currently overseas and waiting for return flights are reminded to first contact the Vanuatu High Commission in Wellington, Suva and Noumea and The Pacific Labour Facility in Australia to be registered for the flight. After you have registered to travel, then contact the local Air Vanuatu offices by email to book your flight.  Emails can be sent to: Australia [email protected] & New Zealand [email protected].