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By Ravi Ladduwahetty

Minister of Civil Aviation Tilak Marapana and Minister of Tourism Gamini Lokuge will deliberate with the Board of Directors of the national carrier - SriLankan Airlines tomorrow to solve a crucial problem in the tourism industry ; bridging a deficit of 38,000 Colombo bound airline seats to accommodate the Winter 2002 tourist season.

The hot topic of the meeting's agenda will be the ability/inability of the national carrier to recommence flights to the German and Italian cities of Frankfurt, Rome and Milan.

This is indeed a very catastrophic situation. If the national carrier does not commence its flights to the German and Italian cities of Frankfurt, Milan and Rome right now, it will mean that Sri Lanka will not be included in the travel brochures which works out to a loss of 38,000 tourist arrivals who each spend around US$ 65 per day and the financial loss of over Rs. 3 billion, Minister Lokuge told the Daily News in an interview yesterday.

It is indeed tragic that these flights have been stopped. The National carrier had three frequencies of Colombo/Frankfurt/Colombo flights and another three frequencies of Colombo/Milan/Rome/Colombo. These flights were stalled following the July 24 attack at the Katunayake International Airport. Now that the ground situation has been cleared, there is nothing to stop the Government from resuming these flights, the Minister said.

Authoritative SriLankan Airline sources point out that the airline has been hesitant regarding the resumption of these flights on grounds of Germany and Italy being loss making routes and that the airline would have to incur a further loss of around US$ 2 million during the winter season.

However, the tourism industry opines that even if the national carrier runs at a loss, it would be justified with the gains that the tourism industry would reap by resuming flights to these strategic western capitals.

Minister Lokuge said that if no substantially productive outcome was to follow tomorrow's parley, that he would take the appeal to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for the sake of the industry.

Chairman of the Sri Lanka Association Inbound Tour Operators (SLAITO) and Managing Director of Walkers Tours Ltd Wasantha Leelananda told the Daily News that the prospects for Sri Lanka for the forthcoming winter season were extremely good and that the resumption of flights to and from Germany and Italy were imperative as they were two of the main generating markets.

The travel trade is made to understand that the national carrier is looking at the resumption of flights from these markets very favourably, he said.

SriLankan Airlines were at the forefront of the tourism industry- accounting for 50 percent of all tourist arrivals and that Sri Lanka would be able to benefit from the resumption of flights in terms of the resurgence of the industry.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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