Island Aviation Services Limited (IASL) has revealed that 190 private jets landed at the Maafaru International Airport (MIA) in the first quarter of this year.
MIA was opened in 2019 and was designated as an international airport in July 2020. IASL stated that the number of private jets landing at the airport has increased significantly since then.
As such, 190 jets landed in the first three months of this year, which is 380 flight movements. Statistics show 708 tourists arrived in the Maldives via MIA and 762 tourists have left via the airport. Most of the tourists received by MIA were from Russia, which amounted to 305 tourists, while the second-highest number of tourists arrived from the UAE, which amounts to 190 tourists.
The statistics also show that 201 private jets landed on MIA in the first quarter of last year, which is higher than this quarter. However, the number of jet landings in March this year is higher than the same month last year.
Maafaru International Airport was built from a grant of USD60 million provided by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD). The airport has a 2,200-metre-long and a 40-metre wide runway and is designed to handle the largest aircraft in operation including the Airbus A380 superjumbo jets.