Rapid Travel Chai

No, it’s not some mainland Chinese knock-off of Taiwan’s Eva Air.

Ewa Air – Flying Company is a new airline based in the Indian Ocean French Overseas Department of Mayotte, 51% owned by Réunion’s Air Austral.

Saving the long backstory for another time, it took over a week for Delta to ticket me out to Moroni, Comoros Islands (HAH), only getting issued a few days before departure. I scrambled to get the rest of the trip in place, which hinged on getting to Mayotte the next day and on to Madagascar the day after that. Not a lot of flights out of Moroni, and Ewa’s flight was the only option.

I only found the flight by chance, not even Wikipedia lists them yet. One website listed an Air Austral flight that was not on Air Austral’s website and some detective work lead me to Ewa.

Ewa’s website’s calendar grayed out the 8th, yet clicking the 9th turned up the flight on the 8th and none on the 9th. I would say they are using Delta’s website team yet there actually was a flight found, so Ewa.

Ewa had online reservations but not ticketing so I tried all the websites I could find. I wasted two days with lastminutetravel and another, the only websites to list the flight, both coming back a half-day later that they had no ability to ticket Ewa.

So I tried Ewa’s online reservation, which gave me two phone numbers to call and provide my credit card. Both numbers are not in service. emails are never answered. After 48 hours the reservation was automatically canceled.

I started a frantic search to verify if Ewa actually exists. Tracing through news snippets, it appeared that they planned to launch 10/29, and did to Madagascar on 10/31, however the maiden Comoros service was halted on 10/30 due to a diplomatic tit for tat flare-up of unresolved hard feelings over Mayotte choosing France over Comoros in 1974. Then supposedly it was resolved with a maiden flight on 11/17.

A day before departure I tried Ewa’s website to try to start a new 48-hour reservation and to my delight they suddenly accepted online payment. I got my ticket issued then held my breath as I flew out to the Comoros.

At Moroni’s Airport I saw no evidence of Ewa or English speakers so went to my hotel. The English-speaking reception agreed to call the airport and they confirmed Ewa exists and the flight would be as scheduled.

On Sunday after a sweltering tour of the island, I checked in at Moroni’s airport and walked out onto the tarmac. There stood Ewa it it’s shiny new livery.