From One Islander Aircraft to an Airline: Ewan Smith's Air Rarotonga Story
Some destination stories are best told from the cockpit. Normand Schafer of Far and Away Adventures.com (https://farandawayadventures.com/) hears one of the Cook Islands' great ones from Ewan Smith, founder and managing director of Air Rarotonga.He also tells the story of technology changing around him. In the early days there was no telex machine, and when one arrived it felt like a marvel. Over the years the airline moved from HF radio and faxes to selling directly to customers anywhere in the world online. Yet the ocean between the islands, he notes, is not going to change.
Through the oil shock, 9/11, the global financial crisis and COVID, the airline endured, staffed by local Cook Islanders. Ewan's message is simple: perseverance.
Then there is his second passion. Ewan's aerial photographs of Rarotonga and Aitutaki have been used widely to promote the islands, and he produced a documentary on the reintroduction of the kura, the Rimatara lorikeet, with Gerald McCormack.
He shares the moments that stayed with him: sunrise departures over the Pacific that never lost their magic, flying the first aircraft into new outer-island airstrips as whole villages watched, and pre-GPS flights of about 1,300 km to the Northern Group that felt like an expedition.
Ewan grew up on a farm in New Zealand and still remembers watching an early jet airliner fly over his one-classroom school. In 1973, aged 22, he arrived in Rarotonga as a pilot and engineer, just as the international airport opened. About four years later he launched Air Rarotonga with a single Britten-Norman Islander, flying and maintaining it himself.
Experience the Cook Islands story for yourself. Plan with a Far and Away Adventures specialist.
Get a free trip quote from Far and Away Adventures: https://farandawayadventures.com/form/quick-trip-request/?dest=Cook%20Islands&src=spotify
Through the oil shock, 9/11, the global financial crisis and COVID, the airline endured, staffed by local Cook Islanders. Ewan's message is simple: perseverance.
Then there is his second passion. Ewan's aerial photographs of Rarotonga and Aitutaki have been used widely to promote the islands, and he produced a documentary on the reintroduction of the kura, the Rimatara lorikeet, with Gerald McCormack.
He shares the moments that stayed with him: sunrise departures over the Pacific that never lost their magic, flying the first aircraft into new outer-island airstrips as whole villages watched, and pre-GPS flights of about 1,300 km to the Northern Group that felt like an expedition.
Ewan grew up on a farm in New Zealand and still remembers watching an early jet airliner fly over his one-classroom school. In 1973, aged 22, he arrived in Rarotonga as a pilot and engineer, just as the international airport opened. About four years later he launched Air Rarotonga with a single Britten-Norman Islander, flying and maintaining it himself.
Experience the Cook Islands story for yourself. Plan with a Far and Away Adventures specialist.
Get a free trip quote from Far and Away Adventures: https://farandawayadventures.com/form/quick-trip-request/?dest=Cook%20Islands&src=spotify