Maldivian Air Taxi

1 · POSITION

Maldivian Air Taxi was created to carry holidaymakers from Malé International Airport to resorts that lay too far away for a boat. Its Danish founder, Lars Erik Nielsen, made the sea crossing to Kuredu and remembered that the passengers were so sick on the voyage that he had to find a better way to travel. He started the company in 1993, with two Twin Otters on floats. The discomfort of the transfer was the premise of the business. [1, 2, 3]

2 · A TERMINAL IN A MAN-MADE LAGOON

The airline did not work from a gate. A visiting reporter described its dockside terminal as set in a man-made lagoon, and recorded that the company's first office there had been a shipping container. The airport on Hulhule Island, next to Malé, includes a seaplane base, so the guest left the international terminal and arrived at a quay. The hand-over from one journey to the next happened on water rather than on tarmac. [3]

3 · THE STATE JUDGED IT AS HOSPITALITY

By the time the Maldives recognised the company in 2007 it employed over 250 Maldivians, among them trained pilots and co-pilots. The honour was a Special Award of Recognition for Outstanding Service to the Public in the Field of Tourism. Its citation credited the operator with making the transfer faster and more convenient for visitors returning home. The company was therefore assessed on the service it gave guests rather than on the flying. [2]

4 · THE NAME ENDED BEFORE THE SERVICE DID

In February 2013 Maldivian Air Taxi and Trans Maldivian Airways partnered with Blackstone, and the combined operation carried the Trans Maldivian name. Writing the following year, a magazine described the island airline as one formed by joining Trans Maldivian Airways with another carrier, Maldivian Air Taxi. The transfer the founder had designed continued under a different signboard. What ended in 2013 was the name, not the service it stood for. [1, 3]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ The founding year, the two aircraft and the Kuredu crossing rest on the successor company's own history page, a state award citation and one magazine article; no independent archive was read. Nielsen's remark is quoted as the company reports it. The employment figure describes 2007 alone and should not be read across the company's life. Nothing fetched here describes a Maldivian Air Taxi lounge, cabin service or catering, so none is claimed. [1–3]