Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) has stated that Velana International Airport has received an all-time high amount of private jets for the new year. To shed some further light upon this, as compared to that of last year’s December this is a 15% increase. To bring this into perspective, approximately 15 jets land every day.
Every year November and December are what travel professionals would like to call the ‘high season’. Tourists from all over the world arrive and fill up the resorts during these days. The completion of ‘North Apron’ as part of the VIA Development Project, has ultimately led to this increase in Jet arrival. As of now, the parking slot allocated for the Jets is the aforementioned North Apron.
Due to the high traffic at Velana International Airport, there have even been difficulties in landing the aeroplanes. MACL has said that there have been up to 20-minute delays in the air due to the traffic at VIA. However, all this would get a permanent solution after the opening of the new runway.
Velana International Airport is undoubtedly one of the busiest airports of South Asia. On April 1st alone 29 Private Jets landed at VIA.
Statistics from the Ministry of Tourism has shown that 1.3 million tourists were welcomed to the Maldives up until November 2018. Furthermore, most of the resorts and guesthouses of Maldives are at 90 to 100% occupancy rate.
