Air Moana: An Enjoyable But Brief Experience

We had a chance to fly Air Moana economy class and found it to be a perfectly pleasant experience. We’d certainly be open to flying it again.

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Booking Air Moana economy class

There aren’t too many ways to book your Air Moana flights, so let me state the obvious first. You can go out to their website and purchase your flight with cash. Yeah, it’s just that simple.

But, really, where is the fun in that? I agree, which is why I took a more interesting approach. Both Jenn and I each have the Capital One Venture X card (refer-a-friend link) that offers a $300 travel credit when booking on the Capital One travel portal. Did you know that Air Moana is on that portal, enabling you to use that credit? Of course, you should know that it’s listed as Air Madrid on their portal and not Air Moana. Madrid is half a world away from French Polynesia. But in case you need some confirmation, “NM” is Air Moana’s IATA code.

Not only that, but apparently the Capital One travel portal thinks Bora Bora is in Nicaragua? Oh, you can do better than this, Capital One…

I wish I could say that I could just buy the tickets and go out to their website to confirm the reservation is valid. But if you try to do that, you’ll be met with a fatal error. You see, Air Moana doesn’t like showing any details on its website that aren’t booked directly with the carrier.

But there is a “trick” to make sure the reservation exists. Just act like you’re checking in for your flight. It will tell you that it’s not possible at this time because it’s more than a day out from the flight. But this is the easiest way just to confirm the tickets are valid and the booked journey. I needed that confirmation to help my mental state after all the weirdness of the Capital One travel portal.

Is it cheaper booking Air Moana flights in French Polynesia?

Simply put, yes, your flights will be cheaper if you buy them while in French Polynesia.

I booked our tickets well in advance of the trip. Before accounting for the $300 travel credit, the one-way journey from Papeete (PPT) to Bora Bora (BOB) would cost $634.40. After the travel credit, we only paid $334.40.

But what about if we purchased our tickets within French Polynesia? Well, I tried that out when local and it would have cost 12,161 XPF ($118 US) per adult for a date in the (then) near future.

We all know that airline pricing can and does change over time. So, I then tried setting my VPN to the United States to redo the process. The same dates and flights would now magically say $216.53. That’s some pretty significant savings from just where you buy your tickets!

Unfortunately, I know of no credible VPN service that will allow you to set your destination to French Polynesia. If you want to take advantage of it, you could potentially wait until landing in French Polynesia to buy your plane tickets. But that might require some more flexibility on your part if your preferred time is sold out.

Please don’t waste your money on premium class

I don’t understand the upcharge for premium class. Let’s just take the below pricing as an example. I get the difference between “Special Offer 23k” and “Standard 23k”, which has to do with refundability. From there, you have “Comfort 23k”, which is odd because “Flex 46k” offers better features (more flexibility and baggage) but costs less. Perhaps it’s just an oddity of the date selected.

But what about “Poe Premium”? From what I can tell, the biggest benefit is earlier boarding (though last to deplane), perhaps a premium drink on the flight, seat selection, and you can stay a year (not relevant if you book one-ways). The seat otherwise appears to be the same seat everyone else gets. You’re not getting much and have to pay a lot for the experience.

It’s just not worth it.

Exploring PPT airport

We arrived at Papeete Airport (PPT) before Air Moana started operations. Air Moana runs a much smaller operation than Air Tahiti does, and so don’t be surprised to find that the doors are shuttered until 90 minutes before departure.

Overview of PPT airport

That gave me a brief chance to walk around and get a sense of what’s available here. First, a map of the airport.

Locker rentals

There are lockers available for rent outside the secured area.

There are lockers of various sizes inside this area. As an example of costs for a 24-hour period for items not fitting inside the standard sizes:

Surfboards = 2,000 XPF
Baby car seats = 1,800 XPF
Baby strollers = 1,500 XPF
Golf bags = 2,500 XPF

Expect the lockers themselves to be similar pricing. I didn’t get a chance to act like I needed a locker to see the price, but other reports I’ve seen put the price of a locker in the range of the quoted costs above.

ATM

Need an ATM? Head towards gates 51-54 and you’ll find this Socredo ATM. Remember this is your best way to get local currency with the lowest fees, assuming you have a debit card that reimburses you for ATM fees.

Food

If you want a quick bite to eat, there is a McDonald’s at the airport.

Along with a pizza robot machine. These seemed to be all over Tahiti.

The Tahiti Airport Motel

Just look outside the airport and take a glance at that building in the distance, poking out above the trees. It’s the Tahiti Airport Motel.

The unfortunate thing is this is indeed the closest hotel (or motel?) to the airport. It will require walking up a hill, which means it won’t be for everyone. And sometimes I heard the road up to the hotel is closed. If you need to use a taxi to get here because the walk might not be possible, does it make sense to just book elsewhere?

Taxi services

If you need a taxi, head out across the street and to your right.

You’ll eventually come to the end of the road, where the taxi stand is located. We came by here twice–once there was a dispatcher present and another time no one was here. Unfortunately, the time no one was here resulted in us waiting quite a while for a taxi to appear. You might think to pick up the phone, but unless you know a number to dial, it won’t connect you to anyone.

Arrival and first impressions of Air Moana economy class

Let’s get back to the real review. At around 90 minutes before departure, the shutters opened and we could check in. Since I booked with Capital One, it wasn’t clear to me what my ticket included (seats or bags). Well, we found out quickly.

Each passenger could check a bag (up to 23 kg), consistent with the “23K” fare category. There used to be a cheaper category advertised with less baggage allowed but it has since been removed.
Seats are assigned by the check-in desk.

Hand baggage is supposed to be limited to 5 kg, but that seems to only apply if you bring a duffel bag. They did not inspect the weight of our backpacks or Jenn’s purse.

For domestic flights, there is no lounge available for any passengers. In fact, there’s not much past the security checkpoint. You’ll find some poorly-maintained bathrooms and some seats.

If you get hungry or thirsty, there is a small shop in the corner or a vending machine. But don’t expect much variety. You’re better off getting something before security.

The boarding process came and went pretty quickly because there were only a few people on this flight. Staff also decided to give us expedited boarding because we had kids, but it totally wasn’t necessary.

From there, we walked outside to wait a moment for staff to take us the rest of the way.

When ready, we headed out towards our plane for this journey. You know you’re in paradise when you see a prop plane.

And then boarded the ATR 72-600 through the rear door.

Our inflight experience

We boarded the Air Moana flight to find a variety of colored sections of seats. But aside from the very forward two rows reserved for premium class, there was no discernable difference between the colors.

Don’t expect much overhead space on these planes. They will fit a duffel bag but it’s going to struggle with a hard-sided carry-on luggage.

Jenn decided to model the seat, which has surprisingly adequate legroom. I didn’t have a measuring tape, but it’s more than what you would get in economy practically anywhere else. The seats are comfortable enough for the quick journey. If you have a choice, sit on the port side of the plane on this route for better views of Bora Bora.

There is a tray you can fold down from the seat in front of you. It’s rather narrow, but you’re not going to be eating all that much on the flight anyways.

Above the seat are individual air nozzles and reading lights.

Once in the air, we made our way over to Moorea as this flight turned into a triangle route (PPT-MOZ-BOB-PPT). It’s a very quick eight minutes of flight time.

Once we touched down, we were on the ground only for a short time. Six passengers got off and eight boarded. We were only on the ground a total of 15 minutes before we took off for BOB.

As proof the flight had hardly anyone on it, I present the photos of everyone else in the cabin. While it was more crowded in front of us…

…there weren’t many behind us. Based on my count, only 25% of the seats were occupied.

Food and beverages

On the Moorea to Bora Bora segment, a flight attendant walked the aisle to give us a cookie and take our drink order. The free drink options are as follows:

Pineapple juice
Water
Coffee
Tea
Hot chocolate

Soda (Coke) costs money, as does beer. But the charge for a can of beer was only 500 XPF (under $5 US). That’s going to be one of the cheaper drinks you’ll get both inflight and in Bora Bora.

Wi-Fi and Entertainment

There is a QR code on the back of each seat that advertises their Wi-Fi system. But it was never turned on for the duration of our flight. Honestly, for a flight as short as we had, it wasn’t a big deal. I was more curious to try it for informational purposes.

Besides, it was more entertaining just to look out the window and see the beautiful islands as we passed by them.

Arrival to Bora Bora

Before we knew it, landing procedures commenced into Bora Bora. We got some nice views of the island and the resorts as we landed.

The airport is the long strip on a motu off the main island.

There were no difficulties as we landed on the island. Everyone deplaned through the rear door.

And we began our walk over to the terminal, which is one of the smallest we’ve been to.

Sure enough, we made it to Bora Bora and began our search for hotel staff (to be continued in the next installment).

A note about Air Moana’s reliability

I think it’s fair to point out that Air Moana is still an airline that’s relatively new. As such, it’s going to still go through some growing pains. I’ve seen reports from others online that it should be avoided or that they canceled their flights. Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise given they only have three planes in their fleet. The third was just acquired in June 2025.

In any event, the flight changed quite often for us before we started this trip. Our flight originally operated as a nonstop (did you catch that from the booking details above?). It then changed into a triangle route, which is more efficient for their operations. The timing of the flight also changed quite a bit, moving from a flight earlier in the morning to one later in the morning.

What this all means is that you should remain flexible if you book Air Moana. Don’t schedule your flights in such a way that a change in the schedule will leave you with a problem. Our backup would have been just to book Air Tahiti and scrap the Air Moana flights if they didn’t work out. But thankfully, we didn’t need to take that approach.

Recommendation: Yes, if you’re flexible

As I mentioned, the biggest issue for Air Moana is just that the flight might change between booking and departure. As long as you prepare for that, it shouldn’t be too bad. But always have a backup plan in case it just doesn’t work out.

As a sneak peek, the Air Tahiti flight is fairly comparable, but I’d say we enjoyed Air Moana more. That’s in large part because Air Tahiti was completely packed and this flight was quite empty. Service is pretty comparable between the airlines, and pricing was a bit cheaper booking Air Moana (especially so if you book within French Polynesia).

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