Key Market to Tourism, Russia Resumes Flights with Maldives

Thursday 3rd of September 2020

Key Market to Tourism, Russia Resumes Flights with Maldives

Russian tourists have recently spiked up a bit in the Maldives, with a reasonable proportion of tourists visiting the Maldives in spite of the COVID-19 situations. Russia has the world’s fourth highest number of cases, with more than a million infections confirmed, yet Maldives shows itself to be one of the safest destinations to visit even during such hectic times and hence is an attraction for the Russian tourists.

And now making things better for the Russian tourists, the Russian government has added Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the Maldives to the list of countries it plans to restart flights with five months after closing its borders due to the coronavirus pandemic.

After imposing a ban on international travel as of late March 2020 to slow the spread of Covid-19, Russia gradually lifted travel restrictions to Britain, Turkey, Switzerland and Tanzania starting in August.

Minister Mikhail Mishustin, signed the decree stating that air travel with Egypt, the UAE and the Maldives will resume “on a reciprocal basis.” This means that Russia will only accept the locals from these three countries in return for these countries accepting theirs. 2 flights will be there from Russia to Vela International Airport per week.

The decision was made by the Russian government based on the fact that the countries reported no more than 40 daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks.

The Russian government has also stated that the crisis center is still continuing to monitor the COVID-19 situation and is working on expanding the list of countries with which air traffic can be resumed.