The national carrier of the island nation, Maldivian, confirms a total of seven companies have shown interest to issue loan for the acquisition of aircraft for the airline.
According to Island Aviation, the main company under which the airline is operated, the companies have stepped forward to finance towards the acquisition of three ATR aircraft.
Moreover, Island Aviation's Managing Director Mr. Mohamed Mihad has attested that the company aims to acquire all three aircraft through loans, and added that the loans will be long-term financial instruments with lenient repayment procedures.
In addition to this, Mr. Mihad declared that the company will decide on an eventual financier sometime in the coming weeks.
Island Aviation has decided on opting out of their usual Dash-8 twin-otters and acquiring state-of-the-art ATR models in light of modern-day aviation demands.
Moreover, the airline opted for ATRs to boost cost-efficiency since the models consume comparatively less fuel and also less maintenance expenditure. This would also mark the very first instance of Maldivian airline is adding ATR aircraft to the fleet.
The Dash-8 manufacturing has slowed down with some of the models used by Maldivian already becoming obsolete.
Under the agreement signed with France's ATR, Maldivian is set to acquire two ATR72-600s and one ATR42-600; all three of which will be added to the airline's domestic operations.
The current fleet of the airline consists of 12 aircraft which include Airbus 321, and 320 along with ten Dash-8s.
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