VLI Port Vila

How deep the VLI board really is

The table above says where a courier can fly from VLI. This reads the same 11 destinations back for the questions a dispatcher asks second: how much of the board rests on one airline, how much of it runs less than daily, whether the return leg is as thick as the outbound, what the clock here does to a Gulf working day and which of the destinations shut at night, all of it computed on 2026-09-07 from AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics.

• 9of the 11 destinations are flown by one airline
• 8destinations run less than once a day
• 0destinations have four or more departures a day
• 45.5%of the destinations name Air Vanuatu, the largest presence here

Who holds the departures at VLI

Seven airlines appear on the VLI board and they do not hold it evenly. Air Vanuatu is on 5 of the 11 destinations, 45.5 per cent of them, and on 5 of those it is the only airline flying the sector. The destinations it appears on carry 4.7 of the 9.7 departures a day this airport files, though other airlines fly some of the same sectors, so read that as reach rather than as a share of the aircraft.

The next largest presence is Solomon Airlines on 3 destinations. 5 of the 7 airlines at VLI appear on a single destination each, which is the long tail every airport carries, and none of it is a rebooking option when the sector you need is the one that fell over.

An airport held this tightly is quick to book and slow to recover: with 5 of the 11 destinations on one airline, the second aircraft on a VLI sector is usually another Air Vanuatu aircraft, and when there is not one the desk is looking at another airport rather than another airline. No alternate airport within road reach is held for VLI, so that second look is a longer road leg or a different day.

How much of the VLI board is daily

Of the 11 destinations, 3 are flown at least once a day and 8 are not, though none of them drops to once a week or less. The median destination on the VLI board is flown 5 times a week.

An average of 0.29 flights a day is the schedule statistic, and it is worth translating it before anything is promised to anybody: VLI to Craig Cove (CCV) is 2 a week, so a missed departure there is not a delay of hours, it is the next slot.

The five busiest destinations carry 7.2 of the 9.7 departures a day, 73.5 per cent of the whole board. More than half of everything that leaves VLI is aimed at those five places, so the depth on the board above is thinner than the destination count suggests, and a hand carry that is not going to one of them is planned around a single departure time.

Destination	Country	The only airline on it	Flights a week	km	Routing
Christchurch CHC	New Zealand	Solomon Airlines	2	2,895	plan this
Craig Cove CCV	Vanuatu	Air Vanuatu	2	165	plan this
Longana LOD	Vanuatu	Air Vanuatu	3	269	plan this
Sydney SYD	Australia	Jetstar	3	2,484	plan this
Auckland AKL	New Zealand	Solomon Airlines	5	2,239	plan this
Lonorore LNE	Vanuatu	Air Vanuatu	6	204	plan this
Norsup NUS	Vanuatu	Air Vanuatu	6	205	plan this

The seven destinations out of VLI where one airline holds the sector and files fewer than seven departures a week, with the weekly figure taken as the average daily rate multiplied by seven rather than as a fixed timetable.

The way back from VLI

The desk holds the return direction for 5 of the 11 destinations, and a courier plans the way back on those figures rather than on the outbound. On none of those 5 does the return run more than a quarter thinner than the outbound, so a turnaround through VLI is a question of hours rather than of whether an aircraft exists.

It runs the other way as well: Christchurch (CHC) files 0.43 a day back into VLI against 0.29 outbound, which is the shape that strands a courier at this end rather than at the far end.

The clock at VLI

VLI keeps Pacific/Efate time, seven hours ahead of Dubai all year.

When it is 09:00 on a Dubai working morning it is 16:00 at VLI, so a nine to six day at each end overlaps for two hours. That is a narrow window for a signature, a customs query or an authority to release, and it is the reason a consignment for VLI is briefed the day before rather than on the morning it flies.

The night at VLI

1 of the destinations from here carry a documented night restriction of their own, which is a departure time question at this end rather than an arrival problem at the other.

Into Sydney (SYD) the door shuts at 23:00 local, so the last departure from VLI that lands inside it leaves around 20:20, on a modelled block of 3h 40m. Those one departure times out of VLI are worked backwards from the published window with the block time model this site uses everywhere, 720 to 880 km an hour by sector length with thirty minutes on the ground, so they are arithmetic rather than a timetable and the desk checks the published departure before it promises the landing.

Where VLI turns up on the rest of this site

The airport also sits behind the Vanuatu country desk, which sets out the customs practice, the working week and the road legs behind this airport.

To price a movement rather than read the board, the route calculator opens with VLI already set as the origin, and it works out the flying time, the distance and the delivery hour for any of the 11 destinations above.