Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) Managing Director Ibrahim Shareef Mohamed has announced plans to introduce an illuminated water runway.
Shareef made the revelation while speaking at the panel discussion of the now ongoing Air Service World Congress (ASWC) 2024 at Kurumba Maldives. While responding to a query from the panel’s moderator, Shareef noted that Maldives boasts of the largest seaplane fleet and operation.
He also said that currently, seaplanes observe 60 movements per hour – and at times maxing at 70 movements per hour. He added MACL’s plans to expand this to 84 movements per hour this year.
“For this year’s winter super-peak, we are trying to add an additional water runway, for them [air taxi operators] to have more air taxi movements,” he said.
Seaplanes end their operations by 18:00hrs now owing to no lighting on the water runway. Reflecting this, Shareef said that they are now working with airport lighting manufacturers to see the possibility of illuminating the water runway.
“This will increase and enhance services to the tourism industry, because they [guests] can fly at 18:00hrs and land any time if our water runways are lighted,” Shareef added.