54th Anniversary of VIA celebrated with social distancing

The 54th anniversary of the Velana International Airport was celebrated with a flag-raising ceremony at the airport.

Social distancing was practiced at the event held amid the situation with the Covid-19 virus in the Maldives. Safety and preventive measures were taken during the ceremony to celebrate the airport which is the main international port of entry into the country. Participants even wore face masks as a preventive measure against the virus.

Moosa Solih, Managing Director of Maldives Airports Company Limited spoke at the ceremony and highlighted the achievements of the airport in 2019. Solih noted that the traffic movements of the airport had increased by 16 percent compared to the previous year as well as the passenger traffic, which increased by 13 percent.

Solih also stated that the busy airport which once dealt with 40 international aircraft per day now only deals with two due to the pandemic virus. The number of domestic travels had also been drastically reduced noted, Solih.

“Before we operated 50 domestic flights, which has been reduced a lot,” said Solh who added that the operations of the airport would be conducted according to the guidelines of HPA. He added that the airport’s employees were its prime asset and expressed gratitude towards its employees.

Velana International Airport was opened on April 12, 1966.