Cash-strapped Sri Lanka will resume flights from the northern Jaffna peninsula to Chennai by next week, a senior minister has said, three years after the island nation shut down the services. The move will help the country’s tourism sector and boost its troubled economy. The tourism sector is the main source of foreign exchange earnings for Sri Lanka.
However, the onset of the pandemic in 2020 severely crippled the tourism sector and was one of the major reasons for Sri Lanka’s economic crisis. According to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the island nation’s earnings from international tourist arrivals for November reached USD 107.5 million, taking the cumulative tally to USD 1129.4 million in the first eleven months of the year.
Sri Lankan Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told Parliament on Monday, “Flights from Paleli to India will resume soon, possibly by December 12.” The minister said that flights between Jaffna and Chennai would continue to operate. “The runway still needs some improvement,” he added.
The existing runway can accommodate only 75-seater flights. The airport was renamed Jaffna International Airport in October 2019. The first international flight to land there was from Chennai. The 2019 redevelopment of the airport was funded by both Sri Lanka and India. Earlier, India Alliance, a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India, operated three weekly flights from Chennai to Palaly. However, flight operations were halted after the change of government in Sri Lanka in November 2019.
Sri Lanka is currently facing its worst economic crisis since its independence from Britain in 1948. Since early April, street protests have been taking place in Sri Lanka against the government over its mishandling of the economic crisis.
In September, the IMF announced a US$2.9 billion bailout package to help the country recover from the worst economic crisis. A severe shortage of foreign reserves has led to long queues for fuel, cooking gas and other essentials, while power cuts and rising food prices have heaped misery on the people.
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