What is the best option to reach New Caledonia?

The French overseas territories are unequally served. If the French West Indies are now overwhelmed by a plethora of airlines, with Air France, Corsair, Air Caraibes, French Bee, Norwegian and Level, other territories such as New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Mayotte are served more sparsely and even exclusively.

But you know that we at TravelGuys love the exotic. Then you will see that there are much more interesting routes to go to New Caledonia than our national airline!

Thus, we have compared the cheapest fares in Business Class on the 3 alliances. A quick comparison.

At SkyTeam, Air France is the obvious choice

The natural idea is obviously to go and see what our national airline offers to go to a territory that remains French.A quick comparison.

Obviously, as it is the natural solution, it is very, very expensive. Nothing for less than 5000€ round trip.

In this case, how does one travel?

Well, it depends: in any case, you will have at least one connection in Tokyo and the last leg will be on Air Calin, the Caledonian national airline.

As for the trip to Tokyo, you have a choice. Either the direct flight from Paris on Air France, and we will certainly be entitled to the old NEV4 cabin:

On the other hand, on the continuation flight to Noumea, the new Air Calin cabins in 1-2-1 are deployed:

By choosing KLM (with an extra connection in Amsterdam, it will be a flat bed between Amsterdam and Tokyo :

In short, not great and very expensive.

It’s even worse at Oneworld

At Oneworld, it’s the Berezina… Nothing under 6700 € in Business, and this, all year long:

And again, when we look at the details, we see that the options at this fares are with Emirates on the first or on the first two segments, or with Air France:

Not ideal, because unless you are a member of the Qantas frequent flyer program, there is no chance of earning miles on these code-shares on non-Oneworld airlines.

On the other hand, when you search directly on the Qantas website, you will find excellent fares with more fun routings:

Of course, the last segment operated by Aircalin will not credit, but the routing remains very fun!

Cathay Pacific has an offer around 3700 € but we were unable to book it online.

Star Alliance: limited offer but exotic routings

With Star Alliance, getting to New Caledonia from Paris seems less simple on the comparators, probably because of the lack of agreement up to NOU (the offer is plethoric up to New Zealand or Australia).

54h on the way there, 67h on the way back, do you really want to do it… And good luck to confirm the fare, we didn’t manage in the end to get something under 4600€.

And the Gulf airlines?

Emirates, already, does not offer the destination, apart from its partnership with Qantas.

Qatar Airways offers combinations with its partner Qantas as well as with Aircalin, but nothing under 7000 €.

Etihad offers a combination under 4800 €.

Tip: don’t depart from Paris

[Addition made by Bertrand who invites himself in this post by Olivier.]

If I had to go to New Caledonia in business, considering the length of the journey, I would be smarter…

Instead of departing from Paris, I’ll depart from…Stockholm. From there you can find almost all year round business class at 2300€ to Sydney on Singapore Airlines. From there I will take a flight to Noumea.

For the round trip Paris-Stockholm you have business at less than 400 euros on Swiss or Lufthansa (often around 350) or eco at around 120 (depending on the period and if you book in advance) on Air France, Swiss, Lufthansa.

A Sydney Noumea will cost you around 500 euros on Qantas/Air Calin in eco.

Considering the duration of the flights, by flying to Stockholm in eco and Sydney-Nouméa in eco, we can keep the trip under 3000 euros by flying 95% of the way on Singapore in Business, one of the two best in the world in this segment.

Well, it’s still self-connect with the associated risks but it’s largely feasible.

For 300 euros more and still from Stockholm you can aim at Qatar Airways and its superb QSuite…

[ End of my intrusion ]

Bottom line

Noumea remains an expensive destination, with a very captive clientele (local or business). It is therefore very complicated to find excellent deals, unless you cut your itinerary with separate tickets, at the risk of missing your connections.