Air Seychelles: Unbearable situation |14 March 2025
• Passengers stranded, flights cancelled, and silence from management
For travellers relying on Air Seychelles, the past few weeks have been nothing short of an operational disaster. Since early March, the airline’s regional flights have descended into chaos, with long, unexplained delays and abrupt cancellations leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. The only explanation is the all-too-familiar and dismissive excuse: “technical problems”.
Business travellers, tourists, and even medical passengers in need of urgent care abroad have found themselves caught in this web of mismanagement, forced to rearrange schedules, endure unplanned expenses, and suffer in silence. What is behind this worsening crisis? The answer is simple: Air Seychelles is attempting to do more than it can handle, and its customers are paying the price.
One plane too many, one too few for Passengers
Despite having only two Airbus A320 Neo to service key regional routes – including Mauritius, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, and Tel Aviv – Air Seychelles has chosen to lease out one of these aircraft, ‘Veuve,’ to Etihad for Middle Eastern operations. The result: the entire flight schedule is at the mercy of a single aircraft, ‘Pti Merl Dezil.’ Any technical issue, however minor, sets off a chain reaction of delays and cancellations that ripple across the region, leaving passengers stranded without recourse. The evidence of this catastrophic planning is undeniable. Let’s look at two recent cases:
The three-day debacle
On Monday, March 3, 2025, flight HM049 from Seychelles to Mauritius was grounded at Seychelles International Airport. Passengers in Mahé were left in limbo, while 141 passengers (mostly Seychellois citizens) expecting to return to Seychelles from Mauritius found themselves stuck at SSR International Airport. The cost of this failure was staggering. For three days, these stranded passengers were housed in luxury resorts, provided with meals, and transported at the airline’s expense. Some, desperate to reach Seychelles, opted to fly via Dubai – adding even more to the mounting costs. The final bill is an eye-watering sum that Air Seychelles would surely prefer not to disclose.
The unapologetic rebooking fiasco
Fast forward to Thursday, March 13, 2025 – flight HM049 from Seychelles to Mauritius was cancelled outright, leaving 80 passengers stranded. The response from Air Seychelles? A cold, impersonal message: "You have been re-accommodated to flight MRU-Mahé 15.03.2025." No apologies, no explanations – just a casual directive to accept the inconvenience. Business people missed crucial meetings, tourists saw their plans shattered, Seychellois citizens were at a lost without any resources, and yet the airline’s so-called ‘customer service’ remained silent.
Adding insult to injury, reports have surfaced of passengers forced to wait over eight hours in Johannesburg for their connection yesterday – another glaring example of a company that seems to have lost all regard for its customers.
A disgruntled traveller