China’s Xiamen Airlines has commenced direct flights to Maldives.
Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) stated that the inaugural direct flight from Xiamen Airlines landed in Maldives yesterday at 18:05 hrs.
Last February, Xiamen Airlines began chartered flights to Maldives.
With the Maldives market having broadened, Xiamen Airlines will now operate three flights a week to Maldives from next Saturday onwards, MACL said.
The flights will be on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, with a Boeing 737-800 airplane of 169 seats being used for the flights.
@XiamenAirlines has officially commenced scheduled flights to Maldives!
The inaugural flight Boeing 787 successfully landed, marking the beginning of their new operations, from XMN to MLE.
With three weekly flights now available, travelers from China can easily access the… pic.twitter.com/Q9MN1FfuCj
— Velana Airport (@VelanaAirport) July 30, 2024
MACL CEO and Managing Director Ibrahim Shareef Mohamed stated that the commencement of Xiamen Airlines serves to further connect Maldives to the world, and will be an added support in the efforts to reach 2 million tourist arrivals to Maldives this year.
This is the fifth airline from China that is conducting scheduled flights to Maldives, with the others being Beijing Capital Airlines, China Eastern, Sichuan Airline and Chongqing Airlines.
The highest number of tourist arrivals in Maldives so far this year is also from China. As of last Wednesday, 148,839 Chinese tourists were welcomed to the Maldives, which is 13 percent of the total 1,142,222 tourist arrivals recorded this year.