Q. Would it be better to negotiate our leases and to get older model Airbus aircraft for less monthly lease and interest rates since, as you said, the current fleet of Airbus A330s are not efficient at doing air cargo and passenger transport like the Boeing 747?

A. Most of the leases are for 12-year periods. Many of them began in 2014/15 and some in 2017. So they have many years to run — the first, for the most expensive A330s, will begin to expire in 2026. Until then SriLankan Airlines is contractually liable for them.

Once the pandemic recedes and a vaccine is available, airline traffic will slowly recover. There will be plenty of airlines such as Emirates, Qatar, Singapore, Cathay etc, who will connect Sri Lanka to the world. The strong LCCs (Indigo, Air Arabia, Fly Dubai, Air Asia, Lion Air etc) will also provide regional connectivity.

There will be other privately funded airlines springing up to service the market too. FITS already has an operation running. Two start-ups, Spark Air and Fly Lankan, are advertising their intent. In my opinion, there is no need for the GOSL to waste public money on the airline business. It is far better if private enterprise is allowed to operate airlines based in the country than for the government to spend state funds.

It is a matter of the GOSL having to decide where the priorities lie. Propping up UL for another 3 to 5 years will cost somewhere in the region of USD 3 billion. The choice is up to the government. Will the money be better spent elsewhere, or should the national carrier continue to be subsidized? That’s a political choice.

Aura is another domestic airline/flying school if I'm not wrong who will also be starting operations from VCCC/RMA soon.

Aura is domestic airline according to this ?

Hi Haleef, thanks for the update ! the aircraft in the above post belongs to Aura Airlines? or have they brought the plane.

I wonder why domestic airline sector is not successful in Sri Lanka. There are few domestic airlines are in Sri Lanka such as Millennium Airlines, Fitsair, Sakurai, Serendib Airlines, Fly Southern etc. But i think none of them are operating domestic schedule flights these days ? As far as i know, Fitsair was operating schedule flights to Batticaloa and Jaffna until Covid. I wonder what happened to Sakurai's YS-11 . SLAF MA60s are still in operation?

It seems domestic flight operation in other countries like India are operating as normal.

As I know of, still only everything is waiting for AOC. No aircraft have been acquired as of yet. Sakurai's YS-11 will not fly. FitsAir also wasn't operating in the past few days most probably due to the low demand of pax. But cargo is flying to and from Indian destinations, Male and Dubai. Serendib's GA-8 is now operated by Lakwin Aviation and will also be starting hopefully soon. Millennium Airlines has closed and is noore, both in domestic and flying training. Recently their R-66 was also sold to a German operator. SLAF MA-60s fly regularly on and off, I doubt they go on passenger run though.

IndiGo airlines flight 6E9031 which has been originated from Chennai just now landed at HRI.

Operated by ATR (VT-IYG). Is same aircraft operate the flight (6E9203) from BLR to HRI last time? it was carrying one passenger in that flight if i recall it correctly.

4R-ALJ done a test flight on 27-Nov.


image upload

New guidelines in the offing to welcome tourists from 1 Jan.


Tuesday, 1 December 2020 01:46 - - 296

• Travel from any country permitted for minimum stay of 14 days
• Influx of daily travellers limited to maximum of 300 with priority for citizen repatriation
• All international airlines will be allowed with prior approval from COVID-19 Taskforce and CAA
• Permit visa for long-stay travellers, dual passport holders, resident permit holders, film tourism and sports tourism
• Sri Lanka Tourism proposes to issue visa for 6 month instead of one month
• Issuance of ‘On Arrival’ visas suspended until further notice
• All passengers require COVID-19 insurance for minimum period of one month, expenses relating to health not to be borne by Govt. during stay
• Travellers will only be allowed in certified hotels, use of public transportation disallowed
• Tourist sites will be reopened for travellers
• Sri Lanka Tourism Chief says objective is to restart and recover fast, benefits to trickle down

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By Charumini de Silva

more:

I was going through some articles about the effect it could have on TK....

I think TK should continue doing what they are doing for the moment, mainly because ET is also a StarAlliance member and they may have something mutually beneficial on the cards

ET has also started direct flights to Istanbul a few months ago using their 737-800’s which I feel may also be utilized for the CMB sector as well and if I’m not mistaken I think BOM is also served by a 737-800

Happy about this news but, so sad to hear other airlines stealing sri lankan airlines's markets...sri lankan has long way to go to be success. However sri lankan lags far behind ethiopian airlines.

It's not "stealing" market, it's competition. Like Sri Lankan compete for passengers from southern India to Australia.

But where will they seriously compete other than to Seychelles? Maybe a little to southern Europe. For most of the routes that Sri Lankan fly it would not make sense to go via Addis. They will compete more with Emirates and Qatar and will open new markets to Sri Lanka.