Air Mauritius

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Air Mauritius

IATA MK	ICAO MAU	Callsign AIRMAURITIUS
Founded		1967
Hubs		Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport
Frequent flyer program		KestrelFlyer
Fleet size		16
Destinations		25
Headquarters		Air Mauritius Centre, 19th Fl., President John Kennedy Street, Port Louis, Mauritius
Key people		Sanjay Buckhory (Chairman), Manoj Ujoodha (Executive Director)
Website: http://www.airmauritius.com/

Air Mauritius is the national airline of the island of Mauritius, based in Port Louis and flying regional and international services. It flies some 850,000 passengers to about 30 destinations. Its main base is Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport (MRU), Mauritius. The airline has the phaeton rubicola or Paille-en-Queue, a fish-eating tropical bird, for its symbol.

1 History
2 Destinations
3 Fleet
4 External links

[edit] History

Air Mauritius was established on 14 June 1967 initially as a handling agent. It modestly started airline operations in August 1972 with a six seater Piper PA-31 Navajo aircraft leased from Air Madagascar on a flight from Mauritius to Réunion. International operations started in 1977.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the airline operated Boeing 707s and Boeing 747s, in their SP configuration (SP meaning Special Performance), on their longer routes. Nowadays, all the 747s are gone, but they use the Airbus A340 type, with Boeing 767s introduced in 1988, ATR 42s introduced in 1997 and an ATR 72 introduced in 2002 for inter-island routes and Airbus A319 for regional flights on the African continent. Air Mauritius is also one of the few airlines in the world (Aeroflot, British Airways and Air Sahara being among the others) that have combined airplane service with helicopter flights, using the Bell Aircraft Corporation range helicopters.

Air Mauritius has a large presence on European, African and Indian Ocean country airports, and the company performs a range of services in Mauritius for international airlines.

In 1995 the airline was listed on the stock exchange of Mauritius. It is owned by Air Mauritius Holding (51%), publicly held (20.54%), the State Investment Corporation (4.72%), government of Mauritius (4.53%), Rogers and Company (4.28%), British Airways (3.84%), Air France (2.78%) and Air India (2.56%). It employs 2413 staff.

Air Mauritius launched its new A340-300Es to London Heathrow and Hong Kong in December 2006. It will retrofit all other A340-313X in the fleet during the course of the year 2007.

Air Mauritius is adding two Airbus A330-200 to replace the Boeing 767-200(ER) in late 2007. It has been noted that since February 2007 it has reduced operations using the two Boeing 767-23B(ER). Air Mauritius is using its A340-300s on these routes until delivery of the two A330-200(twinjet) which will be used to operate flights on India, Malaysia,Singapore and Perth routes.

[edit] Destinations

Main article: Air Mauritius Destinations

[edit] Fleet

Airbus A340-300

The Air Mauritius fleet consists of the following aircraft (at November 2006):

On order: 2 Airbus A330-200 have been ordered to replace the two Boeing 767-200ER in 2007. In 1988 one of the two Boeing 767-200ER (tail number 3B-NAL;named the `City of Port Louis`) set a new distance record for commercial twinjets flying from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Mauritius. Distance flown was 8,727 statute miles (14,042 km). Duration of the flight was 16 hours 27 minutes.