Jet Airways to take over SriLankan’s Frankfurt, Paris routes

Jet Airways hopes to fill the vacuum created by the SriLankan Airlines, suspending its flights to Frankfurt and Paris, an airline official said.

SriLankan Airlines has announced suspending its operations to Frankfurt and Paris by November as part of its restructuring plan underway.

“Jet Airways will fly to these two cities in the near future taking the advantage of the vacuum,” Jet Airways Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing Colin Neubronner said last week in Colombo.

Jet Airways is India’s second largest airline.

The official said that their intentions to expand operations in Sri Lanka are stalled by the extremely high ground handling costs at the country’s main international airport. Jet Airways started to fly to Colombo, its first international destination in March 2004 and operated four flights a day- two to Chennai, one to Delhi and another one to Mumbai.

The airline only operates two flights a day to Mumbai from Colombo at present.

“The reasons to cut down our operations were many folds. Higher international fuel prices at that time, the civil war going on in the country and the steep ground handling costs,” he said.

“The key for us is to position us as a network career. We should be there when a Sri Lankan plans his travel to go overseas. That’s where we want to be. However, we are not in the price game,” the newly appointed Jet Airways Country Manager for Sri Lanka, John Victor said.

Jet Airways has two flights to Paris on a daily basis, one of which a code-share with Air France. The airline does not operate to Frankfurt as yet. However, it operates two flights to Amsterdam daily one from Mumbai and one from Delhi and also operates three flights to London.

The Airways recorded a net profit of US$ 185 million in 2016 financial year compared to a loss of US $ 342 million in 2015. It is leveraging on India’s incredible economic growth and is a major contributor to growth. It operates over more than 630 daily flights and about 75,000 passengers daily connecting 51 destinations.