One takes ninety minutes and runs twice a day. The other takes twenty five and will not fly after dark. The honest comparison.
This is the first question in almost every email we answer, so here is the whole picture in one place.
The speedboat is ours. It leaves the airport jetty at half past ten and at four, takes about ninety minutes, and costs less than half what the seaplane costs. The middle half hour is open sea and the boat moves. If you are prone to seasickness, take something before you board.
The seaplane takes twenty five minutes and the arrival over the atoll is the thing guests photograph most. It flies in daylight only, and the schedule is set on the morning of the flight by the operator rather than by us, so budget for a wait of anything up to three hours in the lounge. The luggage limit is twenty kilos in the hold.
The decision usually makes itself once you know your flight times. A flight landing at nine in the evening rules out the seaplane entirely and probably rules out the last boat as well, which means a night in Malé. We would rather tell you that now than sell you a transfer that cannot happen.
Send us your flight number rather than the time. Flights slip, and the number is how we find out before you land.