Our Airline - History

History

Our Airline was established as Air Nauru and started operations on 14 February 1970 with an experimental service between Nauru and Brisbane, using a chartered Dassault Falcon 20 registered VH-BIZ. Regular scheduled services commenced after the delivery in January 1972 of the airline's first Fokker F28 Fellowship, registered C2-RN1 (a second Fellowship, C2-RN2, was subsequently placed into service as well). A Boeing 737-200 (C2-RN3) was added to the fleet in 1975 and a Boeing 727-100 (C2-RN4) entered service on 16 June 1976. Later in the 1970s the two Fellowships were sold to Air Niugini and more Boeings were added to the fleet.

By 1983 the fleet included seven aircraft, two Boeing 727-100s (the second was registered C2-RN7) and five Boeing 737-200s (C2-RN5, 'RN6, 'RN8 and 'RN9 having been added to the fleet); since the entire population of Nauru at this time was about 8,000, the airline was in the extraordinary position of having seating capacity equal to 10% of the Nauruan population. The airline also had a bad reputation for cancelling flights at the whim of its government owners, including using the Boeing 727s for low-level searches for Nauruan fisherman lost at sea while relatives on board were served alcohol by the flight attendants. From this high point (at least in terms of fleet numbers) the airline gradually contracted in size, leasing some aircraft and selling others. Five years later in 1988 the fleet consisted of three Boeing 737-200s with the one remaining 727-100 leased out to Trans Australia Airlines. At this time the airline was badly affected by an industrial dispute with its pilots and was operating without a set timetable, a situation that lasted for several months. In 1993 two of the 737-200s were replaced by Boeing 737-400s (C2-RN10 and 'RN11), leaving the venerable C2-RN3 (kept because it was convertible between passenger and freight configurations) to soldier on for a little while longer. The airline, by now only operating a single 737-400, was corporatised in July 1996 as the Nauru Air Corporation (NAC) headed by a new CEO without ties to the government, enabling it to operate independently in a commercial marketplace, free from most of its government constraints.

In 1998 Air Nauru came under the regulatory control of the Civil Aviation Authority of Australia and since then has been a select foreign carrier holding an Australian Air Operator's Certificate (AOC). The island's regular economic troubles have caused the airline to lose large amounts of money, and on some occasions become insolvent. Its operations were also suspended for brief periods in the 1990s because of concerns raised by Australia over the airworthiness and safety record of its aircraft. Airline offices and equipment were also frequently repossessed by the Australian government for Nauru's repeated defaults on foreign loans. The airline has been in dispute with the Export-Import Bank of the United States since 2002, and in December 2005 the High Court of Australia upheld an earlier decision to allow the bank to seize Air Nauru's only aircraft, registered VH-RON, leaving Nauru and the island nation Kiribati without air services. The aircraft was seized by creditors at Melbourne Airport on 18 December 2005. Following the acquisition of a replacement aircraft (a Boeing 737-300) in mid-2006, the airline was rebranded as Our Airline and relaunched on 14 October 2006.

Our Airline is wholly owned by the state and has 65 employees (at July 2012). On 26 November 2007, the airline launched its new website and online booking facility.