Malé, Maldives — The national airline of Maldives, Maldivian has been awarded as the Leading Tourist Transport Provider of 2020 by the South Asian Travel Awards (SATA).
The Deputy Managing Director of Island Aviation Services (IAS), Aishath Jennifer accepted the award on behalf of the airline during a virtual program that was held for the event.
In her message to the audience, Jennifer noted that 2020 has been a difficult and challenging year for the tourism and aviation industry due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and that winning such a prestigious award is a testament of the confidence industry partners and customers have in services provided by the airline.
While Maldives closed its international borders on May due to the spread of Covid-19 in the country, all airlines stopped operating in the country except for Maldivian. The national airline continued to operate repatriation flights for Maldivians despite the closure of borders to help the stranded foreigners go back to their country.
Maldivian airline operates flights both international and domestic flights and currently operates to 15 places including Bangladesh, India and Thailand since the borders of Maldives reopened on July 15.
A total of 1000 parties competed in this year’s SATA awards including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka as well. The winners for the 52 different categories were determined by the evaluation of the judges, having 60% weightage and online votes having the remaining 40% .
SATA is known as the best of South Asia’s hospitality and travel industry since the year 2016. The program honors stellar organizations and individuals in a wide array of categories.
