In a huge move, Fiji Airways is expanding beyond the Pacific. It’s opening a new U.S. route that will, not only be its new longest route, but will also take advantage of upcoming changes the airline is undertaking. And, honestly, while I’m a bit shocked, it all makes sense.
For its entire history, Fiji Airways has been a Pacific-centric airline. That makes sense, given their base of operations in Fiji, which itself is on the western portion of Melanesia, on the boarder with Polynesia, which extends from Hawai’i, down to Aotearoa, and to Rapa Nui. As such, the airline has exclusively operated to countries, territories, and states near the Pacific Ocean. In fact, its current longest route is to Vancouver, Canada, which clocks in at 5,866. However, Fiji Airways is expanding beyond the Pacific with a new route that will dethrone Vancouver as its longest.
Fiji Airways is Expanding Beyond the Pacific
Recently, the flag airline of the island nation has been making moves to encourage more visitors, especially those from the U.S. These include committing to become a full member of the Oneworld alliance, and adopting American AAdvantage as their own loyalty program. This last bit directly ties into the fact that Fiji Airways is expanding beyond the Pacific.
Fiji Airways already flights to three destinations in the U.S. – Hawai’i, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, they also serve Vancouver, Canada. So, where, then, should Fiji Airways expand to, especially since Los Angeles is already an American Airlines hub? Dallas/Fort Worth, of course!
It’s a move that, while surprising, makes a lot of sense to me. After all, DFW is American’s largest hub. As such, it offers an immense amount of connectivity, including to destinations across the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and Europe. So, though Fiji Air’s goal is to attract more American visitors, flying to DFW opens literally the entire western world up to them, especially with all of the feed American and its European Oneworld partners can provide through the airport. In fact, Fiji will be reachable from virtually anywhere in Europe with as little as two layovers.
On the flip side, while LAX is a hub, American is fairly weak there. Virtually all their traffic there is serving other large cities and American hubs, along with some Latin American and Caribbean flying. So, it isn’t quite as useful for Fiji’s purposes as DFW could be.
DFW-NAN Service
We don’t know when Fiji Airways will commence its new service. In its application with the U.S. Department of Transportation, they say they intend to begin flying the new route as soon as the receive all the requisite government approvals.
However, when they do begin operating the route, we know they’ll do so three times weekly on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, utilizing their Airbus A350-900 aircraft. Of course, these gorgeous birds are equipped with 33 Collins Aerospace Super Diamond lie-flat seats arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration, plus 301 Recaro CL3710 seats in Main Cabin arranged in a 3-3-3 configuration. 39 of these seats feature extra legroom for a fee, but they’re still considered main cabin.
Fiji Airways is Expanding Beyond the Pacific, Final Thoughts
Never before have I written so much about such a tiny airline based in the vast Pacific. However, Fiji Airways seems to be in growth mode, and they aren’t wasting any time. With just 14 aircraft in their entire fleet, though, the airline is much smaller than my hometown airline – Hawaiian (which has 63 aircraft in its fleet) – so, if Fiji is going to expand beyond what it’s already planning to do, I suspect they’ll need to order more aircraft.
At any rate, remember how I was saying this new route will be its longest? Well, Dallas-Nadi is 6,625 miles, which is 759 miles further than Vancouver-Nadi.