On your way to the Maldives? Find out if your airline has already moved to the new terminal 1 (ITA and Neos are already there)

Just a couple of months ago there were just a handful of airlines using the new Terminal 1 at Malé airport, capital of the Maldives. The building had been opened to passengers last July at the end of a very long gestation, partly related to the lockdowns resulting from the Covid outbreak.

The opening took place in stages, but accelerated significantly from October onward, to the point that today some 30 carriers have left the old, small and ugly historic terminal (made in the 1980s and then expanded countless times) to move into the new, gleaming and huge (compared to each other) terminal.

Of these thirty, a good number are local or Far Eastern airlines, which are of little interest to the Italian (or European) passenger planning to fly to the Maldives.

Among others, the presence of the two Italian carriers serving the Maldivian market should be highlighted: Neos (which has been relying on Terminal 1 since last Nov. 28) And ITA Airways, which followed it by also moving on December 20., when the first of its direct flights from Rome, which operate on a seasonal basis, landed in Malé).

The other companies 'of interest' are. the low-cost Air Arabia, which connects Italy and the Maldives with a stopover at its hub in Sharjah, UAE; the all-Business BeOnd which flies twice a week from Malpensa to Malé with a technical stopover at the brand new Red Sea International Airport On the Saudi coast of the Red Sea; Gulf Air flying from Rome and Milan via Bahrain; Saudi Arabian Airlines, which also flies from Rome and Milan via Jeddah; flydubai, which operates from Bergamo with two flights a day as well as from Pisa, Naples and Catania to Dubai and from there to Malé; the German Condor and the Austrian Austrian, who fly from various Italian cities to Frankfurt and from there to the Maldives; Swiss leisure Edelweiss; Etihad, which makes a stopover at its brand new terminal at Abu Dhabi Airport; and British Airways e Virgin Atlantic, European but of less logistical interest to the Italian passenger.

Etihad was the first among the three Gulf bigwigs to land at the new terminal, while Emirates and Qatar Airways (which operate four and three daily flights from their Dubai and Doha hubs to Malé, respectively) moved there on Sunday, December 21 and Monday, December 22. They remain at the old terminal for the time being two other emblazoned airlines, including Singapore Airlines (of little interest to us) and Turkish Airlines.

"Our plan is to carry out all major removals by the end of December," the Maldivian Airports Co. which operates the Indian Ocean archipelago's stopovers, told The Flight Club.