Cancelled flights, hours-long delays. Milan-Maldive, BeOnd's last two months are a gallery of horrors
A tunnel of horrors. That's what it looks like, in terms of flight regularity and punctuality, if on Flightradar [...]

A gallery of horrors. That's what it looks like, In terms of regularity and punctuality of flights, if on Flightradar 24 you set the route Milan Malpensa-Dubai World Central-Malé and you select the weekly flight operated by BeOnd, the all-Business leisure airline that has been flying between Europe and the Maldives for just over a year. (with a stopover, indeed, in Dubai).
Here I am, after booking months ago an MXP-MLE and return December 4-18 I find myself having to leave. We get off to a bad start right away. Flight scheduled for 11 pm in Milan, at 10:30 am the same day they call me and tell me the flight is cancelled. I offer a refund of €600 if I want to leave another day or they tell me I can leave the same evening from MUC, they pay for the connection, but I have the flight from MXP at 17:00. Understand that it takes me 4h from my home to MXP and at 10:30 I was still ... on other business.
Impossible for me unless I rush by car to Milan instead of by train! Stroke of genius, I propose to them to get me to MUC via VCE which is only 1h from home. They call me back and agree. We arrive in MUC, I dash into Airport Lounge World using PP. Lounge also nice but food very sad. We arrive at the boarding gate. Plane parked at ...... wolves. In all between those leaving from MXP and those from MUC there will be about 25 of us. For the record, many more from Italy than from Germany. Flight, amenity kit not forthcoming. When asked by a lady, the steward replied that they had loaded a few because they did not think they had to carry passengers from Milan as well. Food, also good I must say. There was Champagne but it was warm and the wine I asked for never arrived! It must be said that a half-full plane preparing food with the micro galley they have is complicated. Accommodation, comfortable if you sit, very uncomfortable if you have to sleep, you have no room. Zero privacy and if you are then in the poater part of the plane with wild children and inept (Italian) parents it becomes a nightmare! Technical stopover in Dubai without getting off and pre-arrival breakfast in Malé. But even here. You know the plane is full (other people had gotten on in Dubai) the 3 things you have on the menu do you want to load them?!?! Arrival and disembarkation ok. Again parked practically on the beach instead of in front of the terminal. Now looking at performance on Flight Radar I saw that BeOnd often does the little trick of canceling flights. Especially on Milan. I am returning on the 14th.. Let's hope well. But I ask those who know more about it than me. Wasn't it convenient for BeOnd to have the flight leaving MUC stop over in Milan and load us up there! As schedules would also have been perfect. Moral of the story DO NOT fly BeOnd! The risk is not worth the price of the ticket.
In this article:
A research we wanted to do In response to comments sent to us by a reader of The Flight Club. which complained about the disruptions suffered in early December on just one flight between Milan and Malé operated by BeOnd.
And to another (reader) who, having booked for January asked us for advice on what to do.
From Emirati-Maldivian company on TFC we have extensively covered., also flying there (from Zurich) in March this year and Highlighting the pros and cons of the onboard experience (which our reader also does).
However, back then, BeOnd was still in its infancy and its 'chronic' unreliability in terms of flight regularity and punctuality had not yet surfaced, as it has in more recent months.
Now, Wanting to limit ourselves to flights departing from Milan (where the company began operations early last July), which are the ones that Italian passengers are most interested in, the view that emerges by consulting Flightradar24 is really discouraging.
Analyzing flights as of last October 26. (basically when Winter 2024-2025 started), you can see how in two cases flights were canceled and in all others took off and arrived late, even by hours. In at least a couple of cases so late that seaplanes, which do not fly at night in the Maldives, could not continue to the resorts. And we are talking in all about a total of just 13 flights.
Having only two airplanes in service (one A321ceo and one A319ceo), BeOnd knows it is at high risk of cancellation because, in case of technical problems with a machine, it does not have a backup. And so it applies the following policy: in the case, precisely, of a cancelled flight it gives the passenger the alternative between a refund of 600 euros with departure on another day and the possibility of flying that same day with another airline or with Beond if on that same day it is scheduled to fly from another European airport, i.e., Zurich or Munich in the case of Milan, and bearing the costs of getting there. Which still constitutes, in both cases, a huge inconvenience.
But Let's come to the operational recorded on Milan by Flightradar24 as of Oct. 26.: on that day, the flight operated but instead of leaving at 11:10 p.m. as scheduled, it took off from Malpensa at 6:56 a.m. the next morning (i.e., eight hours later) to arrive in Malé instead of 1:15 p.m. as scheduled, at 10:24 p.m. (goodbye seaplanes); a week later (on November 2), takeoff from Malpensa was at 4:32 a.m. with arrival in Malé at 8:05 p.m. (again, goodbye seaplanes).
The flight of the November 9 operated almost on time, taking off at 11:27 p.m. and landing in Malé at 2:26 p.m.; on Nov. 16, takeoff was one hour late but Flightradar does not report the arrival time of the Dubai-Malé route; the November 23 takeoff was at 1:27 a.m. with arrival in the Maldives at 4:55 p.m.; the December 4 flight was canceled (it was that of our reader who then flew that same day from Munich); theDecember 11 takeoff from Malpensa was at 1:09 a.m. with arrival in Malé at 4:48 p.m.; the December 18 departure was at 1:45 a.m. with arrival at 5:17 p.m.; on Dec. 21 the connection was canceled while the December 25 The flight left at 1 a.m. to arrive at 5 p.m.