Air Austral is selected to be a partner of Air Madagascar and must finalize negotiations for signature at 31 mars 2017 of the memorandum of understanding.

The Board of Directors of Air Madagascar has decided. He preferred the offer submitted by Air Austral to that of Ethiopian Airlines. He thus recommended the Reunion company to the State as a strategic partner of the Malagasy airline.

Air Madagascar and Air Austral know each other having already worked together through code sharing. The Malagasy airline, the 12 February 2017, had notably relaunched its connection to Guangzhou in China with a stopover at The meeting codeshare with Air Austral.

The choice of the Board of Directors is based mainly on the technical conclusions of the IOS and Partners and TroyAvi firms.. The Reunion airline Air Austral has achieved good profitability over the last three years and benefits from a good geographical location not far from Madagascar.. He does not hide his ambitions and presents himself as a regional “leader” in the Indian Ocean. The Reunion company is therefore in the running to be the second largest shareholder of Air Madagascar.

With this recommendation from the board of directors of Air Madagascar, the government hopes to see in Air Austral a means of relaunching the Malagasy airline on the rails of growth and financial balance, for the greatest benefit of the Malagasy economy and Madagascar’s tourism. The Malagasy state should remain the majority shareholder in the national airline to the tune of 51% while, so far, he holds more than 90% actions.

Discussions should begin between the company and the Malagasy state in the coming days. These discussions will focus mainly on the investment plan for the recovery of the company.

With this victory, facing giants such as Ethiopian Airlines, Air Austral, undoubtedly changes category as an airline and sees the future big.

On his side, Air Madagascar remains prey to numerous financial difficulties, commercial or technical, despite its recent removal from the European Union “blacklist” in June 2016. It serves France and China on a long-haul basis., five regional destinations (The meeting, Maurice, the Comoros, Seychelles and Mayotte) and more than ten domestic destinations.

Source : http://actu.one-minute-madagascar-news.com/2017/03/16/air-austral-est-retenu-pour-etre-partenaire-d-air-madagascar/