Emirates continues to hold title of top airline bringing tourists into Maldives
Emirates continues to hold title of top airline bringing tourists into Maldives
Emirates Airline has flown over 224,000 tourists to the Maldives, upholding its title as carrier of highest number of passengers to Maldives since border reopening.
Latest statistics publicized by the Ministry of Tourism revealed that the airline had flown 224,353 tourists to the popular island destination between January 1 – December 1.
With 2,588 flight movements in the reporting period, Emirates increased the frequency of flights operating to the island nation in the beginning of the year. Emirates expects the boosted services to meet market demand to the popular holiday destination.
The airline has held the title of top airline bringing tourists into the Maldives and continues to do so since the beginning of the country’s tourism-revival journey.
Into the beginning of a snail paced few months of low tourist arrivals since borders were reopened on 15 July 2020, Emirates topped the short list of airlines operating to the Maldives.
A number of international airlines are increasing flight frequency to the island nation, in light of the growing demand of visitors.
While Maldives discontinued issuing on-arrival visas on 27 March 2020, nearly four months later the government reopened borders for international travel, following which Qatar Airways was the first airline to commence flight operations to the island nation. The airline currently ranks second, having brought 193,720 passengers through 2,212 flights.
IndiGo follows closely at third with 2,244 flight movements and 154,664 passengers.
Since borders were reopened the country’s national airline, Maldivian has carried 29,248 passengers.
Further, Maldives recorded 51,998 out of the total of 1,202,984 visitors recorded thus far this year, having arrived in chartered international flights.
Some of the international airlines operating chartered flights to Maldives include Air Astana having carried 13,937 passengers, Azur Air Ukraine with 6,626 passengers and Iberia with 5,371 passengers.
Maldives crossed the one millionth tourist arrival target for the year in October 2021 with which Maldives is inching closer to its tourist arrivals target for the ongoing year, set at 1.3 million.
Maldives is gearing up to mark 50 years since the tourism industry’s inception, in 2022, which is to be celebrated as the golden year of tourism in Maldives.
