Ankara, Turkey — The Turkish national airline, Turkish Airlines has resumed its scheduled flight operations to Maldives.
The airline used to operate one scheduled flight to Maldives everyday before they had to temporarily stop their flights to Maldives due to the lockdown imposed as the Covid-19 pandemic worsened earlier this year.
After the temporary halt, starting from today, the airline has decided to resume the scheduled flights to Maldives. The first Turkish Airline flight since the halt landed at Velana International Airport today and they will be operating a weekly flight instead of the daily flight before.
The Turkish Airlines initially scheduled to resume their flights to Maldives starting from October, however Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) had mentioned beforehand that there might be changes in the scheduled table.
When Maldives closed its boarders on March 27, several airlines had already stopped their flight operations to Maldives due to the pandemic.
Since the boarders opened on July 15, MACL has announced to give a special discount to the flights that arrive to Velana International Airport. MACL stated that they will be giving discount for the charges of ground handling, landing, navigation and parking of scheduled flights that will arrive to VIA during this period.
Under the discount scheme introduced by MACL on 28th June, flights that start to operate between July 15 till the end of August will be receiving 100% discount until 27th October. Flights that will start to operate between September till 27th October will be given a 75% discount during the time period. And the flights that will start or continue to operate from 28th October will be receiving a discount of 50% until 26th March 2021.
As MACL expects more airlines to schedule trips to Maldives due to the discount given to the flights, they believe that the tourism industry of Maldives will benefit from it taking a step towards recovery.
A flight from Qatar Airways was the first flight to arrive in Maldives after the boarder was open on July 15.
