(Seychelles News Agency) - Passengers travelling between Seychelles and Paris on the Seychelles national carrier, will now be able to remain onboard the aircraft while on transit in Abu Dhabi following approval for Air Seychelles to make "technical stops only in Abu Dhabi" on the way to the Indian Ocean archipelago.

The Seychelles Minister for Tourism and Culture, Alain St Ange, announced this yesterday during a meeting with French tour operators and the press.

St Ange was leading a delegation comprising of the Chairman of the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA), Captain David Savy and the Chief Executive of Air Seychelles Manoj Papa, on a one-day working visit to Paris.

Air Seychelles re-launched flights to Paris via Abu Dhabi at the beginning of July this year after a two and a half year absence. It operates twice weekly flights between Seychelles and Paris.

France has long been the Seychelles main tourism market but has suffered a drop this year being overtaken by Germany.

According to latest figures available on the Seychelles National Bureau of Statistics website the 24,124 French tourists that have come to Seychelles as at October 12 represent a drop of 12 percent when compared to the same period last year.

Some top French tour operators recently highlighted the lack of direct flights as one of the main challenges they are encountering when marketing Seychelles.

"The point was made that families with children were not happy with having to disembark and go through the security procedures before re-embarking on the plane. The same applied to the elderly passengers. Today we can confirm that we had heard the message and that the Abu Dhabi authorities had accepted to make an exception for the Air Seychelles flights to and from Paris and also Hong Kong," St Ange was quoted as saying by eTurboNews.

In a press statement announcing that it had secured approval for the move, Air Seychelles said this will make life “both simpler and more convenient for the traveling public.”

“……….business and leisure travellers travelling in either direction now have the option to continue to relax onboard the aircraft instead of having to disembark or transfer to another aircraft during the scheduled transit in Abu Dhabi,” said the airline’s Chief Executive Officer, Manoj Papa, in the statement issued yesterday afternoon.

The airline says the changes are effective immediately.

Nevertheless, guests may occasionally be required to disembark “for technical, operational or security reasons,” states the press statement.

According to eTurboNews the SCCA Chairman, Captain David Savy and the Air Seychelles CEO, Manoj Papa said the move was the first step to direct non-stop flights in the future.

"We need to work together to stimulate the market and get numbers growing so that the island's national airline can in due course consider direct flights," they said.

The Air Seychelles Paris flight schedule also provides convenient two-way connectivity between Paris and more than 40 cities across Europe, including Belgrade, Berlin, Birmingham, Bologna, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Florence, Genoa, Helsinki, Lisbon, Lyon, Madrid, Nantes, Newcastle, Stockholm, Vienna, and Warsaw.

The national airline entered into a strategic partnership with Etihad in 2012, where the UAE carrier bought a 40 percent stake, which enabled Air Seychelles to sell codeshare tickets on its European destinations, and others around the world.