SLAF domestic flights to Jaffna shortly

by Shirajiv SIRIMANE

The Sri Lanka Air Force will launch a domestic passenger airline service to Jaffna soon. Air Force spokesman Janaka Nanayakkara said that with the war ending they have less operational activities that enables them to release aircraft for this service.

We have aircraft that could accommodate 14 to 90 passengers and we hope to deploy these aircraft for the Colombo-Palaly flights, he said.Flights would operate from Ratmalana and the Air Force is looking at the possibility of opening a passenger tickets counter in the city.

Depending on the demand we may have three flights per day, he said.

The return ticket to Jaffna is around Rs. 28,000 and Air Force plans to sell a ticket far less than this. A return air ticket to Chennai is sold for less than Rs. 11,000.

When contacted an official from Expo Aviation which operates regular flights to Palaly said that they have high overheads and this is the reason for the airfare to be high.

In addition to high aviation fuel costs, lease flights do not operate to full capacity, he said. When the aircraft returns it does not have another destination to fly which also limits the earning potential from the machine.

Passengers are of the view that if the fare is lowered there would be more travellers to Jaffna. We want to travel to Jaffna to meet our relatives but the fare is high. So we are looking at alternative ways to travel, a passenger said.

However businessmen and NGO staff prefer to take the aerial route as it saves time.