Nauru Airlines kicked off the first nonstop service between Australia and Palau on Tuesday night, as over one hundred guests gathered at Brisbane International Airport to celebrate the occasion.
Joining attendees from Palau, Nauru and Australia, were more than 50 travel agents and industry guests, who boarded the first ‘Palau Paradise Express’ service in the Queensland capital for a week-long famil in the archipelago nation in the Western Pacific.
Nauru Airlines operates the six-hour Palau Paradise Express flight using its 737-700 and 737-800 aircraft.
Flights depart Brisbane on Tuesdays at 11:30pm, arriving at Palau International Airport on the main island of Babeldaob at 4:30am. Return flights leave Palau on Wednesdays at 10:30pm, landing in Brisbane at 5:30am.
The flight times are designed to allow convenient interstate connections from Aussie capitals through Brisbane.
Among the special guests at Brisbane Airport were the Deputy Minister responsible for Nauru Airlines, the Honourable Maverick Eoe, and Nauru Airlines Chairman Dr Kieren Keke.
The Nauru Consul General, Ruston Kun and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT) Assistant Secretary from the Office of the Pacific Andrew Cumpston were also present at the event, along with members of Brisbane’s Palau and Nauru communities.
“Today we launch an even better way to get to Palau with direct flights from Brisbane non-stop to Palau,” Mr Eoe said.
“After 53 years of operations, this is the first time Nauru Airlines will fly direct from Brisbane to Palau. All of you travelling on this inaugural flight are part of aviation history.”
“Nauru is very honoured to be able to partner with Australia and Palau to deliver this new direct connection and we look forward to seeing a rapid growth in visitors between both countries and indeed beyond Palau, to and from other parts of Micronesia and the northern Pacific.”
The new flights are supported by the P4A program, an Australian Government initiative that collaborates with Pacific countries to develop a safer, more robust and sustainable aviation sector. Its goal is to ultimately enhance people-to-people links and support economic growth in the region.
Naturally, the new link also aims to promote two-way tourism.
“Nauru Airlines has been connecting the Islands of the Pacific, connecting the people of the Pacific with Australia for over 53 years,” Eoe said.
“Nauru Airlines has operated in Micronesia for most of that time and did operate through Palau for a period in the 1980s. Micronesia and the central and northern Pacific is Nauru Airline’s home and we know this region well.
“Twelve years ago, Nauru Airlines began regular services connecting Brisbane through Nauru and on to Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
“Following a temporary suspension of these flights during COVID-19, this service recommenced in October 2022 through Australia’s Pacific Flights Program.
“In partnership with Australia, nearly six months ago in December 2023, Nauru Airlines extended the Australia-North Pacific Connector service onto Palau.”
Beyond tourism, the Minister said the new connection aims to “enable trade and stimulate other business and commercial opportunities”.
“Air services in the Pacific, and importantly air services that connect the Pacific with an important partner like Australia, are like rail and roads across Australia,” he explained.
“These air services are essential infrastructure linking people and economies. The existence of these air services is crucial to the economic development of the region.
“I would like to encourage the Australian people, and the travelling public more broadly, to hop on one of Nauru Airline’s flights to Palau, and experience a new destination, an exciting destination, a destination that is a pristine paradise!”
A piece of paradise Aussie travel agents who touched down in Palau this morning will get to know well in the coming days.
