The national airline of the island nation, Maldivian will add two ATR 72-600s to its fleet in order to compensate for influx of travelers amid the tourism peak season and New Year’s peak.
As such, two ATR 72-600 airplanes will be wet-leased; meaning the aircraft will be leased with an operating crew in order to adjust the airline’s operations amid the busy tourism season.
Meanwhile, Maldivian presently operates with 10 De Havilland Dash-8s, out of which only 6 Dash-8s have been actively in operation for the past few days. Furthermore, the airline reports that the inactive 4 aircraft will be facing longer ground times owing to maintenance issues.
Moreover, during the past two weeks alone the Maldives national carrier has chartered over 60 flights from Manta Air and Villa Air’s FlyMe owing to Maldivian’s inability to cater the flights due to aircraft unavailability.
Although the ATRs will be wet-leased exclusively for the tourism peak season, Maldivian have long sought to replace the aging Dash-8s with newer aircraft; most notably the ATR alternatives.