[5][6] Regular scheduled services commenced after the delivery in January 1972 of the airline's first Fokker F28 Fellowship twin jet,[5] which was followed by a second.

[11] From this high point (at least in terms of fleet numbers) the airline gradually contracted in size, leasing some aircraft and selling others.

At this time the airline was badly affected by an industrial dispute with its pilots and was operating without a set timetable, a situation that lasted for several months.

[12] In the early 1990s, an Air Nauru 737 was chartered to operate the Auckland-Niue route of Niue Airlines, the latter company's only service.

[11] Mismanagement of the island's wealth and the resulting economic troubles caused the airline to lose large amounts of money, and on some occasions become insolvent.

Its operations were also suspended for brief periods in the 1990s because of concerns raised by Australia over the airworthiness and safety record of its aircraft.

Airline offices and equipment were also frequently repossessed by the Australian government for Nauru's repeated defaults on foreign loans.

The airline became in dispute with the Export-Import Bank of the United States in 2002, and in December 2005 the High Court of Australia upheld an earlier decision to allow the bank to seize Air Nauru's only aircraft, leaving Nauru[14] and the island nation of Kiribati[citation needed] without air services.

In May 2023, Nauru Airlines applied to the US Department of Transport for permission to fly scheduled cargo and passenger flights to Guam using B737 equipment.

[25] This arrangement ceased later that year, when the aircraft was seized due to Air Nauru's own financial problems.

The plane was painted in the 'Our Airline' livery in Melbourne, making its first visit to Brisbane Airport on 3 September 2013.