Opened on December 1, Maafaru became the latest airport in the Maldives capable of handling regional/international flights and providing the Noona Atoll with its own gateway to more adequately serve the six luxury resorts located there.
Construction of the airport began in 2017, with the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development contributing AED191 million (USD52 million) to the costs of the project which includes a 1,200 square metre terminal, 2,200-metre long runway, associated taxiways, and 14,376 square metre apron, all of which are sufficient to accommodate aircraft the size of A320s and B737s.
The project also includes the construction of a 2,200 square metre maintenance hangar, airport administrative buildings, speedboat docking hangar, a jetty in order to service adjacent islands and a VIP private jetty.
Maldivian (Q2, Malé) is already operating a multiple daily service from Malé to Maafaru utilising its fleet of two Dash 8-200s and eight Dash 8-300s. As well as eleven DHC-6s, the airline also flies a sole A320-214 8Q-IAN (msn 2347) and a single A321-211 8Q-IAI (msn 2599), with the former aircraft being the only Maldives-based narrow body which can fully utilise the new facility in Maafaru. Maldivian presently uses the A320-214 on its services from Malé to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, Chengdu Shuangliu, Chennai, Chongqing, Chennai, Kochi International, Thiruvananthapuram, and Wuhan.
According to the ch-aviation PRO airlines module, the only other two scheduled carrier based on the islands are FlyMe (Maldives) and Manta Air, which currently both operate the ATR72-600 as their respective largest aircraft.
