Holiday Air to lease air craft from ATR
 

by Shirajiv Sirimane

Sri Lanka's only budget airline Holiday Air, has signed a deal with ATR airline manufacturing company of France to lease out three 50-seater aircraft last week. The deal is for 14.4 million US dollars.

According to CEO Holiday Air, Arjun Ruzaik the lease agreement is for five years and the flights would be utilised for their international operations to Male and the Indian destinations, he said.

He said that the aircraft would be ideal for flights less than two hours and would be used to fly daily to Chennai, Trivandram, Cochin Trichi, Bangalore, Hydrabad, Bombay and New Delhi.

He said that they would be next looking at leasing Boeing 737s from USA to fly to Singapore, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai.

Ruzaik whose airline company is ranked among the top six airline companies in Kenya, said they would start flying in Sri Lanka from the end of the year.

Holiday Air would sell for less than 30 per cent of the present fares and would capture a major market. He said that their overheads are minimal and this is another reason for them to offer tickets at a lower rate. The Company also signed a deal with a leading software company for three million US dollars to implement an online booking system for the airline last month.

Meanwhile a meeting with seven airline operators, Holiday Air, Lion Air, Expo Aviation, Aero Lanka, Nawaloka Air, LankAir and Jet Air was held yesterday with the official, of the Ministry of Ports and Aviation and the Airport and Aviation Services Sri Lanka Ltd (AASL). It was announced that the routes for each airline would be allocated next week.

According to an official of the AASL only four airline operators would be given permission to fly international and Sri Lankan owned companies would get preference.

The government has also given the green light to construct two hangers to be used by the new airline operators and land has been already allocated from the Colombo airport premises. "We are yet to decide if the government would fund this or let the private operators build and operate the two hangers," he said.