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Air Seychelles Acting CEO Sandy Benoiton – Pic by Lasantha Kumara
By Nisthar Cassim
Air Seychelles recently expressed confidence in using the twice weekly operations to Colombo, first destination post-COVID, a success especially catering to travellers to and from the South Asian region.
The flights will be served by the airline’s Airbus A320 Neo aircraft in a 12 business class and 156 economy class configuration. It has firmed up an interline partnership with SriLankan Airlines whilst discussions are ongoing for a Code Share.
Air Seychelles Acting CEO Sandy Benoiton in an exclusive interview with the Daily FT said that carrier will use Colombo’s hub status as well as its own network to vie for more through-traffic. It currently operates regionally from its home in Mahe to Tel Aviv in Israel, Johannesburg in South Africa, Mumbai in India and Port Louis in Mauritius.
The direct flight spans 4 hours and 15 minutes, a drastic cut in timing as against the in-direct option that takes about 10-12 hours.
This, according to Benoiton, makes Air Seychelles a compelling choice for both leisure and business travellers.
Last year there had been around 1,000 Sri Lankan tourists whilst in the first five months of this year the number was 156. Seychelles also employs a lot of Sri Lanka professionals, skilled and unskilled labour whilst its nationals visit Sri Lanka for medical care as well.
Tourists from South Asia to Seychelles in 2022 amounted to 6,600 and in the first five months there were 3,150. Indians are the biggest source with 5,000 tourists in 2022 and nearly 3,000 upto May this year.
Benoiton acknowledged SriLankan Airlines as a valuable partner and sees great prospects to promote Seychelles and Sri Lanka combined packages to global travellers. “With greater collaboration, both national carriers and the two countries stand to benefit. We will explore all avenues to maximise this potential,” he added.
Last year Seychelles almost reverted to pre-COVID tourist traffic and was one of the few to have bounced back faster.
In 2022 there were 332,068 tourists who visited Seychelles up from a low of 114,858 in 2020 and 182,849 in 2021. Arrivals in 2019 at 384,204 were the highest. The average length of stay for a tourist in Seychelles is 10 days, according to Seychelles National Bureau of Statistics.
In the first five months of this year Seychelles saw arrivals increase year on year by 148,000 tourists.
Top Europeans markets are Germany, France, UK, Italy whilst in Eastern Europe Russians dominate with 31,000 arrivals last year whilst. Israel is a growing market with nearly 16,000 visiting last year and nearly 8,000 this year upto May. UAE is another emerging market with 17,000 tourists arriving in 2022.
Benoiton said partnership with SriLankan Airlines will give Air Seychelles customers quicker and direct access to numerous destinations in India, Bangladesh, and top tourist spots such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Tokyo as well as highly requested Australian cities namely Melbourne and Sydney. The airline sees these as high potential markets.
Air Seychelles’ direct flights will be a boon to the perishable export cargo from Sri Lanka and elsewhere. At present poultry, fruits and vegetables and apparel are among popular products into Seychelles from Sri Lanka.
“We are privileged to be the first carrier to launch scheduled flights post-economic crisis and among the select few post-COVID,” said Benoiton who has been with Air Seychelles for 23 years.
Air Seychelles General Sales Agent in Sri Lanka is AirPark Ltd., part of Aberdeen Holdings Ltd.
The state owned Air Seychelles has been flying for over 45 years. Domestically the carrier operates up to 30 roundtrips a day to Praslin, the second largest island in the archipelago, along with various charters to other islands on its twin-otter fleet.
In 2022, Air Seychelles managed to retain the most coveted title of ‘Indian Ocean’s Leading Airline’ at the 29th edition of the World Travel Awards as well as, ‘Indian Ocean's Leading Airline Business Class’, ‘Indian Ocean's Leading Cabin Crew’ and ‘Indian Ocean's Leading Airline Lounge’.
Sri Lanka and Seychelles established diplomatic relations in 1988 and in 2014 the two countries signed an agreement for the establishment of a Joint Commission to guide the entire bilateral cooperation mechanism including identifying areas of bilateral cooperation, arriving at agreements, implementation, identifying issues and finding solutions. The two countries also signed five agreements for Bilateral Political Consultation, Cooperation on Tourism and Cultural Cooperation; and Memorandum of Understanding to Promote Technical and Investment Cooperation in Power Sector Development in General and the Implementation of Renewable Energy Projects in Seychelles and Understanding in the Field of Sports.
Located between the east coast of Africa in the western Indian Ocean, Seychelles comprises 115 islands occupying a land area of 455 km2 and an Exclusive Economic Zone of 1.4 million km2.
It represents an archipelago of timeless beauty, tranquillity and harmony famous for its world-beating beaches and for its great diversity from lush forests down to the warm azure ocean. Over 40 of its inner islands constitute the oldest oceanic granite islands on earth while 74 islands form the 5 groups of low-lying coral atolls and reef islets which are the Outer Islands.
The inner islands are mostly granitic, cluster mainly around the island of Mahe, Praslin and La Digue forming the cultural and economic hub of Seychelles, as well as centre of its tourism industry and the majority of Seychelles accommodation facilities as well as home to almost the entire population of the archipelago.
