Air Tahiti Nui has been flying since 1998. It has four aircraft and operates routes connecting Tahiti in French Polynesia with Paris, Tokyo in Japan, Auckland in New Zealand, L.A. and Seattle in the USA. During the 2024 APEX/IFSA Global EXPO in Long Beach, California, Mathieu Bechonnet, Managing Director of Air Tahiti Nui, spoke with Onboard Hospitality magazine’s Stuart Forster.
Stuart Forster (SF): How is Air Tahiti Nui positioned?
Mathieu Bechonnet (MB): We are a small airline but a global one. It’s a challenge but what makes us relevant to the market, we are the only one based in Tahiti. That brings a special positioning in the way you do your selection of the aircraft, the interior and the product itself.
We have a brand that is well-known in a market where hospitality is key. Tahitians are very welcoming people. ‘Where the journey begins,’ which has always been our tagline for the last 25 years, has never been so relevant.
What makes us different from other airlines is we start our iconic experience about Tahiti onboard. Our uniform is traditional dresses and the crew will change during the flight. The crew smile because they are Tahitian.
All of the products we have during the flight – the tiare flower we give when passengers board the aircraft, the programmes that we have onboard on the IFE systems – all of that is meant to develop that key aspect of what we do, which is to do things relevant to Tahiti.
What makes us different from other airlines is we start our iconic experience about Tahiti onboard. Our uniform is traditional dresses and the crew will change during the flight. The crew smile because they are Tahitian.
Mathieu Bechonnet, Managing Director of Air Tahiti Nui
SF: What can you tell me about Air Tahiti Nui’s onboard experience?
MB: We’re doing things with local chefs to help define our product. The main problem is when you go to other places, like the U.S., the sourcing of those may be a bit different.
What we’re doing as a French airline also we have this light touch on bringing some very special wine. We got a lot of accolades for having the best Champagne and wine: we won the Cellars in the Sky in 2022 for Best Business Class Sparkling and Best Business Class Rosé.
SF: Do you use inflight entertainment to convey what people can experience in Tahiti and the islands around French Polynesia?
MB: Yes. We have our TV channel, we call it Tiare TV, and we are highlighting more of the stories about exceptional things in Tahiti: It might be the adventure of the coral gardeners, people that we sponsored a long time ago that now have a global company doing restoration on the coral reefs, telling some nice stories about how they’ve been performing so well now they’re a global company.
We’re also an ambassador of the sports that we have in Tahiti. Kauli Vaast, from the southern part of the island, won gold in the Olympics. It’s all these stories that people like to hear before they come. There’s also a lot of information on the islands themself on what they can discover.
Connectivity is key. Tomorrow, it will be easy to create more of that type of content and, probably, develop a marketplace connecting people to book activities on the islands. It’s moving very fast in this regard.
We have satellite connectivity and we do provide connectivity, but I think, like many other airlines, we are just mindful of the cost. It looks like there’s some groundbreaking development in that with Low Earth Orbit connectivity.
Since we introduced new aircraft and the equipment in 2019, it’s a bad time for us to refurbish the cabin and so we think about the next phase of development now to get that in place before 2030. We see the technological shift is coming right now.
Connectivity is key. Tomorrow, it will be easy to create more of that type of content and, probably, develop a marketplace connecting people to book activities on the islands. It’s moving very fast in this regard.
Mathieu Bechonnet, the Managing Director of Air Tahiti Nui
SF: What are your plans regarding the personalisation of onboard experiences?
MB: We’re giving our crew, tablets so that they can get more information about passenger preferences. I think in the future, we’ll pass more and more information, so that they can know Mr. X, sitting in 23A has been flying without his son.
We think our cabin crew will be not only serving but a key contact with the people to get to know. It goes back to how your crew are. Tahitians are very happy and relaxed to talk. We have already started pulling more and more commercial data into the experience during the flight.
Personalisation can come from the contact, from the commercial data to the IFE, but also can come a lot from giving the right information to your to your crew, so that they can interact and have a better relationship with the people.
SF: To what extent is onboard wellness important to you?
MB: That was a big part of the decision process for us to get the Boeing 787. We are reassessing all the comfort of the seating and the bedding to make sure, especially on the red eye fights to make sure you will sleep, making sure that the sleeping experiences are good. We are rethinking. We introduced Premium Economy when we introduced the new aircraft. We’re very happy with the results. The passengers are asking for more of a premium product and people are paying for it.
Economy is an interesting cabin but there are other products around in the world where you might end up doing some different things in the economy. So we are thinking about that as well.
We have much more going into the high-end type of product than the lower end and it’s been quite successful for us. Premium business has been much more resilient than the rest of the products we are selling, where competition can be fierce. We don’t need to wait for the big refurbishment of aircraft to do things, especially in new products. The bedding will be important to the experience onboard.
SF: Anything else that you would like to say to readers of Onboard Hospitality about your products or services?
MB: With Air Tahiti Nui you have a global experience and a great product. Our people are different. You will feel it and that makes us a bit different. Tahiti is an iconic place and you want to start your journey with the people of Tahiti and Air Tahiti Nui.
