Jet Airways link Colombo-Delhi

Kumarasiri Prasad, Airport Correspondent

Jet Airways, India's premier international airline started daily direct flights from Colombo to Delhi and Mumbai with state-of-the-art Boeing 737-800 yesterday.

On the Colombo-Delhi sector, flight 9W 257 will depart Colombo at 7.50am and reach Delhi at 11.30 am while on the return leg, 9W 258 will depart Delhi at 1.05 pm and arrive in Colombo at 4.40pm. Flight 9W 255 will depart Colombo at 8.45pm and reach Mumbai at 11.20 pm while flight 9W 256 will depart Mumbai at 2.10 am and reach Colombo at 4.45 am.

The commencement of these two new flights between Sri Lanka and India are in addition to the existing double daily Colombo-Chennai-Colombo services.

The airline launched international operations to Colombo-Chennai-Colombo in 2004.

Jet Airways CEO Sudheer Raghavan said the airways was delighted to provide direct links from Delhi to Sri Lanka which is fast emerging as a highly rated global tourism destination. "We are also happy to strengthen air connectivity to destinations within the SAARC region with connections to both Kathmandu and Dhaka via Dubai," he said.

Sri Lanka is fast becoming the tourism destination for holiday and leisure traveller across the globe, he said.

Jet Airways operates a fleet of 91 aircraft, which include 10 Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft, 12 Airbus A 330-200 aircraft, 55 next generation Boeing 737-700/800/900 aircraft and 14 modern ATR 72-500 turboprop aircraft. With an average fleet age of five, 10 years, the airline has one of the youngest aircraft fleets in the world.

Flights to 65 destinations span the length and breadth of India and beyond, including New York (both JFK and Newark Toronto, Brussels, London (Heathrow), Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Dhaka, Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Jeddah, Sharjah, Riyadh and Dammam.