What immediate changes are needed to establish a demand for direct flights to operate to other airports in Maldives? 1- Culture and mind-set needs to change at decision making level. With fair competition only demand and supply will reach its natural or economic equilibrium 2- Application of “Diversity Inclusion Approach” for Economic development has to be applied. At Political level de-centralization is happening. But this approach to cascade into economic development needs to be materialized 3- Recognition and appreciation that centralized distribution of traffic is costly and time consuming - it’s bad for regional development of the economy. 4- Need to stop thinking that 98% of all international traffic as to come to Maldives - At Policy level it’s important to identify potential zones where you have adequate bed capacity where international air traffic can be justified 5- Destination markets need to be identified for selected zones 6- An assessment should be carried out to establish the capacity for traffic, potential demand for the traffic and destinations should be identified

We need to focus on building international Airports in strategic locations throughout the country. And by International airports I am referring to full-fledged airports with basic handling abilities / fueling abilities and CIQ presence. One of the main difficulties in operating to current international airports is that apart from MLE and GAN and HAQ no other airport has fuelled capacity, and apart from NMF no other airports has CIQ presence. These adds up to the operational costs for the operator resulting less attractive charter quotes to the client. To summarize i can say right now changes needs to be made to the lacking of infrastructure and we’d see a very positive impact (as without the proper infrastructure we see keen interest and mild demand to operate to many stations within Maldives) our aim should be that tourists spends minimum amount of time to reach the hotel once they arrive to the Maldives.

Regional tourism and destination tourism would be the future direction of tourism in Maldives. Policies must be made to promote destination tourism regional wise. Our infrastructure investment must also be towards this direction. We already have some useful infrastructure including international standard airports in the country and investments for more such facilities must be encouraged. If we establish policies to independently develop destination tourism all else will fall in place and regional development could be fast tracked to meet the ever-growing demand and expectations of the local population. The mismatch in the current demand and supply could be overcome with the regions contributing effectively and positively to our economy.

VIA is an established hub and proximity to various properties, versus any other airport that firstly lacks proper infrastructure and in most cases there isnt enough beds in various categories in close proximity for a viable operation in long term. So these two factors are key in creating demand and feasibility of another airport.