To boost tourism and help the country in the current dollar crisis, the Sri Lankan Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva on Saturday (Jun 18) said that the country will resume flights from the northern Jaffna peninsula to India from July.
The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority plans to attract 800,000 tourists during the rest of the year.
The present runway can only accommodate 75-seater flights and therefore needs to be extended, he said. He hoped for Indian assistance for runway improvements.
The airport was named the 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’s Alliance Air conducted three weekly flights from Chennai to Palaly. However, after a government change in Sri Lanka in November 2019, the flight operations were halted.
