intro
Last Spring break I headed on a magical trip to Bora Bora to catch an elusive thousand-pound marlin (more on that soon). In the process, we had 4 nights in Bora Bora before going marlin hunting. Bora Bora is easy to get to, but there is a monopoly on the flights there. We paid around 500$ USD per person for a roundtrip ticket in economy for Papeete to Bora Bora.
boarding
Check-in is a breeze to find and our boarding passes were issued quickly. Once all of the formalities were done it was time to board this small ATR heading west to Bora Bora. All planes at Papeete airport board from staircases (there are no jetbridges). This is a fantastic feature as it means getting to see this elusive plane up close!
The airport doesn't feel like a traditional airport in the sense of stress and people pushing. It feels like a transit stop to take you on your vacation. Walking to your plane by the turquoise water of French Polynesia doesn't sound bad, does it?
Seats are arranged in a 2-2 configuration, perfect for a leisure route.
The interesting thing about Air Tahiti is when you check in they give you a boarding pass with no seat assignment ?. It's on a first-come, first-served basis, so I recommend boarding earlier rather than later! Luckily, we managed to find two empty seats next to one another.
Each seat features a standard amount of legroom. This was only a short 190-mile-ish hop over to Bora Bora but if I was taking their longer flights up North it might not be as comfortable.
the flight
There is no pushback of any sort with these small ATRs. The captain fired up the engines and we made our way out to the sole runway at Papeete. Another nice aspect is that there are no 20 minutes of wait for takeoff because of other planes. We were airborne within a few minutes.
For those who are wondering, there is no IFE or Wifi on these planes (not that you should need it). Interestingly, there was also no service on this flight as well. The views made up for both of these aspects.
These are honestly some of the most incredible views I have witnessed from an airplane. That water color is dreamy!
The winds had shifted in the 40 minutes we had been airborne. This meant we had fly past the airport and then loop back around before landing into Bora Bora airport!
If was a beautiful morning when we touched down in Bora Bora with the sun glistening off of the turquoise water.
We de-planed onto the tarmac, relaxation filled the air. A member from the Conrad was waiting for us and showed us to "baggage claim", if you can call it that. I thought it was hilarious that a tractor brought the bags out?.
Soon enough, we were on our way to the Conrad! More on that beautiful resort soon!
Bit of a weird Flight Report as there is no service or anything but thought it would be cool to share! If you are looking for a hotel in Papeete check out the Hilton!
Anyway, I'm midway through my LATAM trip and flew a Cessna Caravan the other day, was so cool and cannot wait to share that flight when I am back!!
French Polynesia and Bora Bora are definitely on the bucket list! Yeah no need for IFE or WiFi when you have such gorgeous views out of the window, which is really what the island-hopping experience in Tahiti is all about! It would be nice if they served at least a bottle of juice or something considering how high the inter-island prices are there---the monopoly surely has something to do with that. I believe they do have a snack and drink service on longer flights, but BOB is just too short of a flight. Everytime I've looked PPT-BOB flights are just crazy expensive, like over $500 RT, which is just nuts for a 45 minute flight, but I assume they figure if you can afford a $5k/night overwater bungalow in Bora Bora, you can shell out the extra $500 for the connecting flight haha.
Thanks for sharing!