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| Friday, 24 December 2004 |
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Ratmalana airport needs infrastructure development: Domestic airlines to fly international by Shirajiv Sirimane The three domestic airline operators, Expo air, Serendib and Lion Air have welcomed the move by the government to allow them to operate international flights from Sri Lanka. According to Director General Civil Aviation Authority C. Nimalasiri, the Cabinet has given green light for domestic airlines to operate in the international sky. A Committee has been appointed by the Cabinet to make recommendations in this regard. "Civil Aviation Authority will also be a part of this Committee which will report to the Minister of Civil Aviation, Ports and Media, Mangala Samaraweera," Nimalasiri said. Director Sales Expo Aviation Seraj Mohamed said this would have a very positive impact for passengers. "They would have more connections and most importantly the passengers would see a decline in prices of air tickets," he said. He said that they would initially target the South Indian market which include Chennai, Trivendrum and Trichi and the Maldives for their operations. "Since the seat allocation for the Chennai sector is filled up and we would be concentrating on three other destinations," he said. He said that the airline which operates daily flights to Jaffna is geared to operate both passenger and cargo international flights at any time. The airline has already operated charter flights to the Maldives and is looking at extending their flights to the Gulf. CEO Serendib Shakthi Vickram said that the airline had been waiting for this green light for a long time. "Each time this somehow gets postponed while Indian domestic airline operators were given a free hand to fly to Colombo," he said. Serendib which is a joint venture between three companies from Indonesia, USA and Sri Lanka said they would be bringing a 175-seater 727 flight soon. "with this we are ready to fly to far east and also to Europe," he said. The CEO said that the Civil Aviation Authority must take over the ground handling or else their operational costs would be too high. "We also prefer to fly out from the Ratmalana since the airport has less operational problems," he said. The government should invest to improve infrastructure at the airport. An official for Lion Air said that this move would boost the local aviation industry and thanked the government for the timely move. "With the additional fuel costs it is very difficult to survive only from the Colombo-Jaffna domestic operations. We are hoping to initially fly to Indian destinations with a stop over in Jaffna," he said. |
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