Édouard Fritch, president of French Polynesia, has signed an agreement in Paris with Jean Castex, prime minister of France, to provide a second state-guaranteed loan of EUR300 million euros (USD341 million) both to help the health system in the South Pacific archipelago and to save Air Tahiti Nui (TN, Papeete), the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The loan “will finance 40% of the recovery plan for French Polynesia for the years 2021 to 2023 [and] play an important role in the recovery plan we launched at the end of last year to come to the aid of companies, [with] social funds on the one hand and also to save the tool that Ait Tahiti Nui represents for the development of tourism in French Polynesia,” Fritch told journalists after the signing in early February.
The airline “has indeed suffered a lot from the closure of borders, but with the help of the state we are going to come to the company’s rescue,” he declared, adding that he did not yet envisage a capital increase for the carrier.
“We are going to start repaying this loan with the 2023 budget. All of the loans contracted by the country today allow us to have all repayment guarantees,” he assured.
According to AFP, before the recent agreement, French Polynesia had already borrowed EUR240 million (USD272 million) from the French Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement - AFD) to finance pandemic-related emergency measures. In October 2021, the Assembly of French Polynesia unanimously approved a subsidy of XPF8.1 billion CFP francs (USD77 million) specifically for Air Tahiti Nui, whose needs at the time were based on its 2020 accounts.
Fully vaccinated resident and non-resident travellers can currently travel to French Polynesia without needing to justify the reason for travel or complete mandatory quarantine, according to the Air Tahiti Nui website. According to the ch-aviation fleets and ch-aviation capacities modules, Air Tahiti Nui currently operates a fleet of four B787-9s on routes from Papeete to Los Angeles International (7x weekly) and to Paris CDG (3x weekly).
