Air Tahiti (i)

♦ The advent of a scheduled commercial air service between the islands came in 1950, when a handful of entrepreneurs founded Air Tahiti (i). To begin with, flights were made in a seven-seater Grumman J-4F Widgeon seaplane. In Jul1953, Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux (TAI), the commercial operator of the state-controlled inter-island air network, Régie Aérienne Interinsulaire (RAI), asserted its entitlement to the allocation of local transport services, under agreements signed with Air France. The territorial government withdrew Air Tahiti’s operating licence for the Mallards, in favour of the TAI, and with it, the Air Tahiti emblem disappeared ♦