Former President Mohamed Nasheed has criticized the government's policy of building airports on most of the inhabited islands in the country.
In a post on X, Nasheed said that four new airports are being built 19-36 minutes apart by speedboat in the northern Maldives, alongside four existing airports.
He said that this disperses traffic from hub airports, eliminating economic viability as each aircraft hop exhausts costly “engine cycles” without real demand—passengers don’t travel between nearby islands; they’re all Male-bound.
Nasheed said that more hops mean higher operational costs and ticket prices, and to cut losses, carriers reduce flight frequencies, harming locals and tourism.
He explained that Maldivian Airlines has already proven that reducing hops improves profitability.
He added that each new airport deepens domestic carrier losses.
