Vanair was a domestic airline based in Vanuatu. The airline flew to 29 destinations on 18 of Vanuatu's 83 islands, and was wholly owned by the Vanuatu government.
The airline commenced operations as Air Melanesiæ in 1965 as a joint venture between two existing airlines, the British-owned New Hebrides Airways (founded in 1963) and French-owned Société Néo-Hébridaise de Transports Aériens, known as Hebridair (founded 1964).[1] New Hebrides Airways contributed a de Havilland Australia DHA-3 Drover to the operation,[2] while Hebridair provided a Dornier Do 28, however the Do 28 crashed in 1966.[3] By the beginning of the 1970s the airline was controlled by Qantas and British Overseas Airways Corporation via their shareholdings in New Hebrides Airways, and by Union des Transports Aériens which had taken over Hebridair and renamed it Société Française des Nouvelles-Hébrides.[4] Sir Dennis Buchanan of Talair, Papua New Guinea bought out Qantas BA and UTA in the late 1970s and ran it very successfully with an Islander, a Trislander, several DH6s and an Embraer Bandeirante, until the Government wanted to take over, and denied the renewal of the chief engineers work permit. The Government subsequently set up Vanair as a government-owned company. The Government-owned airline was run successfully under the leadership of Mr Murray Pope but following his departure the airline nearly collapsed with the introduction of an expensive lease on a Dash 8 aircraft. As it was going broke it was merged with the Government's International Airline, Air Vanuatu and de-merged again in 2001/2 only to go bankrupt again, and to be re-merged with Air Vanuatu.[5] In 2004, it merged with Vanuatu's government-owned flag carrier, Air Vanuatu.[6][7]
Fleet
At the time of the merger with Air Vanuatu the Vanair fleet included:[8]
