Opening a new chapter in the Sri Lankan aviation sector, Alliance Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India has decided to increase the current three weekly Chennai-Jaffna-Chennai flights to a daily frequency. This will be from February 27 till further notice.
Alliance Air earlier had expanded wings globally and commenced commercial flight operations from Chennai International Airport to Jaffna International Airport and back from November 11 2019.
Sri Lanka’s domestic airline operator FitsAir early this month launched schedule flights to the Jaffna International Airport from Ratmalana. The flights operate thrice a week on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday to connect to the Alliance Air, flight from Chennai. “We want to allow passengers from Air India flight to connect with Colombo in a less than three hours by transiting to FitsAir flights from Palali,” an official said.
He said that they may now look at a daily to connect to Alliance Air flight schedule. A Travel Agent however said that a passenger has to pay a tax of USD 60 per ticket and due to this Chennai-Jaffna-Chennai fare is more expensive than Colombo Chennai. “If the government is keen to promote this airport they have to take off this tax which will make it economical to fly out from Palali.” Meanwhile the Minister of Industrial Export and Investment Promotion and Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation Prasanna Ranatunga said that more concessions would be offered to flights operating to both Ratmalalna and Palali. “These include reduced ground handling, hanger aviation fuel and also less embarkation fees”.
This proposal is awaiting Cabinet approval.
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