Vol du Maïdo — 45-60 min at 2200 m

Take-off happens at Le Maïdo, at 2,200 metres, close to three times the height of Les Colimaçons. A short forest walk leads to the edge of the rampart, where the flight launches facing the cirque of Mafate and Piton des Neiges, which peaks at 3,070 metres and remains the highest summit in the Indian Ocean. The panorama covers the three cirques of the island. The flight is thermal: it holds forty-five to sixty minutes aloft, the longest in the range at the school Air Lagon. The descent joins the west coast and Saint-Leu. This is the only site in the range that asks for an approach walk before launch, and the only one leaving from the edge of a rampart.

The package takes a full morning, transfer included. Transport up to Le Maïdo is covered by the price and arranged by the school Air Lagon, leaving from Saint-Leu. The flight runs from two people upwards, which sets this package apart from every other. Booking is taken ahead: the drive up to Le Maïdo is not decided on the morning itself. A short forest walk separates the drop-off from the edge of the rampart, with no particular difficulty but with closed shoes. A delay costs nothing when conditions do not allow flying, and the replacement lands on another morning. Reunion Island offers around three hundred flying days a year, and Le Maïdo opens only on the steadiest mornings. The return lands on the west coast, at Saint-Leu, where the school Air Lagon keeps its meeting point near Kélonia.

Height and length change nothing about the frame: the flight stays supervised by an instructor holding the state Brevet, on gear meeting the EN 926-1, EN 926-2 and EN 1651 standards, checked every day. Third-party liability cover applies to every passenger. What changes is how conditions are read: a thermal flight of close to an hour above Mafate calls for stable air along the whole route, not only at launch. The instructor decides alone, and that call outranks the organisation of the morning. The school Air Lagon has flown this relief for forty years, which weighs on a site where the margin narrows with altitude. Le Maïdo stands 2,200 metres above the cirque of Mafate, and the flight crosses ground that few sites in Reunion Island open to a tandem.

The Vol du Maïdo is the top package in the range, at two hundred and ninety-nine euros per person. The price covers transport, the morning and forty-five to sixty minutes aloft, against fifteen to forty on the packages leaving from Les Colimaçons. It speaks to passengers who want to see Mafate and Piton des Neiges from the sky, and who accept giving a morning to it, two people at a minimum. Those with less time, or travelling alone, will turn to the Vol Panoramique at 1,600 metres or to the packages above Saint-Leu. The Maïdo flight is booked ahead and cannot be caught up later in the day. A moved flight lands on another morning, at no cost. It is the only package at the school Air Lagon that calls for a trip away from Saint-Leu.