MACL announces plans to introduce illuminated water runway

Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) on Thursday announced plans to introduce an illuminated water runway.

MACL Managing Director Ibrahim Shareef Mohamed announced the plan during the panel discussion held at the now ongoing Air Service World Congress (ASWC) 2024 at Kurumba Maldives.

At the panel discussion, while responding to a question presented by the panel’s moderator, Shareef emphasized that Maldives boasts the largest seaplane operation and fleet in the world, and said that there’s “about 60 movements” of seaplanes or air-taxis every hour, which he added has gone up “even towards 70”.

“And this year we are trying to still allow more planes to take off and land, going up to 84 per hour,” Shareef announced.

Noting that MACL maintains strong rapport and collaboration with the seaplane/air-taxi sector of the Maldives aviation industry, Shareef said the for this year’s winter super peak, MACL plans to add an additional water runway to facilitate more air taxi movements.

Following this, he made the announcement of ongoing efforts by MACL to introduce a water-lighted runway.

“Right now, air taxis can fly and land before 18:00hrs,” he said, adding “what we are trying to achieve is to have a lighted water runway. We are working with airport lighting manufacturers to see whether we can have lighted water runway, so that they [seaplanes] can come [and land] later than 18:00hrs.”

Moving beyond this, Shareef invited global aviation industry leaders specializing in drone-type seaplanes to partner up with MACL and introduce the new breed of air vessels to the Maldivian aviation sector.

He emphasized this new breed of planes will “technically run on total renewable energy” as its most unique feature, and said that such an introduction will provide “clear skies for everyone.”