Air Madagascar briefly charters a Royal Air Maroc Dreamliner on its Antananarivo-Paris route
Placed in receivership last year, Air Madagascar is timidly continuing its operations serving a single international route with a leased fleet.
Air Madagascar's MD51 (Paris - Antananarivo) on 22 January and MD50 (Antananarivo - Paris) on 24 January were operated with a Boeing 787-9 aircraft (CN-RGZ) chartered from Royal Air Maroc (RAM).
The official reasons for this "emergency" charter are not known, but it is an unusual situation. Since December, Air Madagascar's Antananarivo - Paris route has been served by a 270-seat Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner (ETARE) (24 in business class and 246 in economy class), leased from Ethiopian Airlines. This aircraft replaced another one of the same segment, chartered from the Spanish private carrier Air Europa one month earlier.
Currently, Air Madagascar offers a single flight per week on Mondays between the Malagasy and French capitals. An additional rotation was included on Fridays at the time of the reopening of the Malagasy sky on October 23.
If the Malagasy national flag in recovery has chosen to charter, it is because it does not have any operational aircraft on long-haul routes, let alone regional and domestic ones. According to the advanced fleet module of Ch-aviation, Air Madagascar and its subsidiary Tsaradia have two A340-300s, four ATR72-500s (two leased from Falko Regional Aircraft and two others from Elix Aviation Capital); two ATR72-600s (Elix Aviation Capital) and three DHC6-300s.
As a reminder, in November 2021, the Commercial Court of Antananarivo, gave its approval for the placement of Air Madagascar and its subsidiary under the protection of the bankruptcy law, a crucial step for its judicial recovery. A bankruptcy judge and two trustees have been appointed to manage the restructuring plan. To date, the company's accumulated losses are close to USD 80 million for a total debt of over USD 72 million.
