MEGA Maldives aircrafts pictured at the airport. PHOTO/MALDIVES TRAVELLER
Maldives’s largest privately owned airline on Wednesday announced mass layoffs over the continued slide in Chinese tourists to the archipelago.
Mega Maldives which brings in almost 30 percent of the Chinese market to the Maldives said in a statement that the the China-Maldives market is down by almost 11% this year through June 2016.
Due to reduction is total revenue, the airline said it would immediately be making 65 positions in the company redundant and put on hold replacing 50 positions that were due to be filled this year.
“As a result, the company’s total staff will now be reduced from almost 400 at the start of 2016 to 278. This is a reduction of 50 local staff and 64 foreign staff,” the statement read.
In addition to the slowdown in the China market, the airline also said the delay in diversification of its routes which included South Africa, India, Thailand and Europe have contributed to the reduction in revenue.
“On top of this, MEGA also faced higher than expected costs from fleet-wide Heavy Maintenance checks it has had to carry out on its aircraft earlier this year.”
Some tourists greeted at the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport.
The airline which began operations five years ago also said it would reduce the fleet from five aircrafts at the start 2016 to three for the rest of the year.
The statement also highlighted the ongoing efforts to boost revenue and expressed hope that it would be able to rehire the employees made redundant in the near future.
According to tourism statistics in July, the highest number of tourists had hailed from China, the Maldives’ largest tourism market, with 35,456 visitors, but is a decrease of 12.2 percent from last year’s July.