Bhutan and Maldives signs air service agreement

Maldives and Bhutan will be beginning operating flights originating and ending at the countries and to other destinations, as they signed an air service agreement, at a ceremony held on Sunday at the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation in Male.

Dasho Kinley Dorji, Secretary to the Ministry of Information and Communication of Bhutan and Adil Saleem, Minister of Transport and Communication of Maldives, signed the agreement, reports Maldives Traveller.

According to Minister Adil Saleem, “SAARC’s transport ministers convened in 2007 and agreed to link all the capital cities of SAARC countries via air transport. The agreement would benefit the tourism industry of the Maldives and tourists would be able to travel directly to Bhutan from the Maldives.”

Maldives and Bhutan had established Diplomatic relations on 13th July 1984. At the 16th SAARC summit held last year, Bhutanese Prime Minister Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley stated that, “We are both small, locked by land or sea. We are both youthful democracies, with fragile ecologies and vulnerable economies, even as we are both to leave the LDC group to become middle income countries,” said Lyonchhoen. “It is thus only natural that we should find ourselves drawn to each other and see virtue in friendship, cooperation and common endeavours.”

An air service agreement such as the one that was signed provides Maldivian and Bhutanese airlines to operate flights to airports in either destination and to other countries, thus providing an easier channel for travellers seeking to tour Asia.

Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley recently expressed his admiration towards Maldives during his visit to the archipelago. He met the Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed on 3 April 2011, where both diplomats agreed that they had been addressing bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern.