Air Seychelles to receive A320neo by July’19

June 17, 2019: Air Seychelles has declared that it will be the first airline in the Indian Ocean and across Africa to take delivery of a new A320neo aircraft. The newest addition to the fleet is set to be delivered in July 2019, which is named as Veuve and registered as S7-VEV (known locally).

Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher (Terpsiphone corvina) is a bird native to the third most populated island of Seychelles and is primarily found in the Veuve Special Reserve in La Digue.

Remco Althuis, CEO of Air Seychelles said, “There are so many factors that set the Seychelles destination apart from the vast marine life and tropical weather. In fact, there are also quite a number of species that are unique to the island but they are not well known or talked about often. To shed more light on the ongoing efforts to protect the Seychelles natural habitat, we have opted to name our new A320neo aircraft “Veuve” to further help in raising awareness about the protection of the endemic species locally as well as across our network.”

Currently listed as ‘critically endangered’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in 2008, the birds were introduced to Denis Private Island as part of the national conservation programme.

Air Seychelles has over the past years extended support towards the Seychelles National Parks Authority and other responsible entities to save the species from extinction as part of the airline corporate social responsibility programme.

Most recently, in February this year, the Seychelles flag carrier together with Denis Private Island supported the University of Kent in the UK and the Darwin Initiative; a UK-funded programme aimed at conserving biodiversity, with the translocation of the birds to Praslin and onwards to Curieuse island as part of a project to start a new population of the flycatchers on the Island.