Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) has revealed that the operations at Velana International Airport (VIA) will be halted for 8 hours coming Thursday, ahead of the opening of their new runway.

General Manager, Corporate Affairs at MACL, Hussain Areef revealed to One Online that all domestic and international movements will be halted for a period of 8 hours starting 11:00pm on Wednesday night. He explained that they were conducting important work in order to switch both runways during this eight-hour period.

All airlines operating to VIA have been informed about the closure of the runway well in advance.

The new Sea Plane Terminal will also be open to operations once the new runway is open. The existing runway will then be used as a taxiway.

The runway project began in 2017 with a USD 373 million loan from China's Exim Bank. The runway project was contracted to China's Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG), and the first test flight landed on the runway in September 2018.

The new runway is 34,000 meters and 65 meters in width, allowing the largest aircrafts to land on the runway.

The runway operation has been delayed due to the delay in moving the TMA Seaplane Terminal near the runway. However, MACL had previously planned for the runway to be opened around season time.

The 'Instrument Landing System' (ILS) has also been installed and tested last week as part of the preparations for the new runway operations.