Air Seychelles sets new passenger number record |31 December 2016

A new passenger milestone was reached yesterday as Air Seychelles flew its 550,000th guest, surpassing its 2015 total passenger number of 522,873.

The 550,000th passenger, Mikhaylov Konstantin, landed at 7.20am at the Seychelles International Airport from Airbus A320 ‘Vallée de Mai’ flight HM187 from Abu Dhabi. He was accompanied by his wife Natalia Prygoda.

Meanwhile, the national domestic carrier recorded its 200,000th passenger –Bernadette Laurete – who flew in with her husband Gilbert Laurete on flight HM3077 from Praslin at 8am the same day.

Air Seychelles’ internal communications manager Sheryl Barra presented the couple from Abu Dhabi an upgraded flight ticket to business class upon departure from Seychelles and Mrs Laurete received an economy class ticket to any regional destinations between Mauritius, Madagascar, Johannesburg and Seychelles.

The airline has registered a 6.7% increase in the number of passengers carried between January and November compared to last year and the total passenger figure for 2016 is set to rise even further as the end-of-year travel comes to a close, indicating another year of strong operational growth for Air Seychelles.

Mr Konstantin’s wife, Natalia, expressed her excitement to have received this honour and described it as the best New Year’s gift.

“We are very surprised that we are the 550,000th passenger of the airline for this year. We are here for the first time for 11 days and hope to celebrate New Year here. We always wanted to come to Seychelles as it is paradise. It is very hot and I like the weather,” said Mrs Prygoda.

The other couple who are from Reunion are frequent visitors to the Seychelles islands and this time they spent only five days on Praslin.

“This holiday was magnificent eventhough there was some rain. We enjoy our holidays here, you have good fish and we really appreciate that everybody here is so kind. Our first visit to Seychelles was 20 years ago,” they said.

Miss Barra said the new passenger milestone is a great accomplishment for Air Seychelles as there has been major developments in the destinations they fly to this year and in 2017 they will surpass the number of passengers received this year.

“We have increased our frequencies to South Africa, during December we included two additional flights to Mauritius to support the demand we receive from passengers,” she said.

As for the 200,000th passenger on domestic flight, Miss Barra said it shows the increasing demand from the locals as well as tourists to travel from and to Praslin.

“It also shows the extent of development and progress made in the services offered by Air Seychelles,” she said.

In a press release Air Seychelles’ chief executive Roy Kinnear said: “Air Seychelles continues to go from strength to strength and we are delighted to announce today that we have set a new record of 550,000 total passengers of which 200,000 have travelled on our domestic services.

“It’s a fantastic way to close out the year and we are confident the upward trend will continue in 2017 as we expand our network to Düsseldorf in Germany, Durban in South Africa and increasing Paris frequency from three to four weekly services, boosting our passenger-carrying capacity even further.

“To achieve another successive year of operational growth is a clear sign that our strategy of focusing on sustainable development at Air Seychelles continues to produce good results for the country and the people of Seychelles.”