Air Austral additional flight to St Denis and connectivity to Mauritius

I had written about Reunion Island and St Denis earlier- it is a small island off the coast of Africa, near Seychelles and Mauritius. AirAustral had once a week direct flight from Chennai-you can get a round trip ticket for about 27000 INR, which  is reasonably cheap. Reunion island is a French territory and Indian nationals are elible for visa waiver for tourist purposes provided a travel agency/hotel in Reunion island applies on behalf of the visitor to get pre-clearance.

Now I’ve noticed two new developments-

There seem to be a second flight. While earlier there was only one flight per  week- leaving Chennai Saturday morning and returning from St Denis on Friday evening, now a second flight leaving St Denis on Tuesday evening and Chennai on Wednesday morning has been added. This is good news because

• If you can’t afford a full one week leave, you can plan a shorter trip- leave Saturday morning, return Tuesday evening- you will get about 3.5 days at St Denis, which is decent if you can’t afford long leaves
• You can split the journey- like 3 days in St Denis, 3 days in Mauritius

Also Air Austral is now offering connectivity to Mauritius from Chennai via St Denis. The round trip to Mauritius costs around  33000 at its best, similar to what Air Mauritius charges during low season. Air Mauritius offers a direct flight from Chennai to Mauritius while the return flight is one stop via Bengaluru.

However, Multi city option on the air-austral website wasn't working- would have loved to book Chennai-Mauritius + Maurititus-St Denis + St Denis-Chennai.

Air Austral non-stop flights are operated with B737-800 and 777-300 ER. Cheapest fare includes food and baggage but is non refundable. (Date change is allowed with a penalty)

I will probably plan a trip to St Denis sometime in 2019. Let us see.