Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Wednesday, 21 September 2022 00:22 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Charumini de Silva
Russia’s largest charter airline — Azur will resume service to Colombo in November, providing much-needed optimism to the tourism industry to draw Eastern European travellers this winter season.
“Azur Airlines has formally informed on resumption of direct charter flight operations to Sri Lanka,” Civil Aviation Authority Chairman Upul Dharmadasa told the Daily FT.
He said this will be a big boost for the tourism sector stakeholders, who are waiting to make a major comeback following three continuous fallouts of Easter Attacks, the COVID pandemic and the economic crisis.
Azur Airline flew twice a week to Colombo from the first week of December 2021 and it helped Sri Lanka Tourism to draw a large number of Eastern European travellers.
When asked about the resumption efforts of the Russian flag carrier — Aeroflot, CAA Chief Dharmadasa said it is still at the negotiation level.
Russia became the second largest source market for Sri Lanka only behind India, attracting 16,894 tourists which accounts for 12% of total traffic in 2021.
These results were supported by the Aeroflot direct flight, which has been patronised by 21.1% of tourists from Russia.
In June, the Aeroflot A330 (SU289) was grounded in Colombo following a court order obtained by Celestial Aviation Trading 10 Ltd. of Ireland, the owner of the aircraft, against Aeroflot in a Colombo court, over a lease dispute.
Recently, Transport Minister Bandula Gunawardena in an interview with Russian media Ria Novosti, said that it “was a terrible mistake” and that Sri Lankan authorities apologise for what happened.
It is noteworthy that despite the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Sri Lanka continues to welcome Russian tourists.
As per the latest statistics, Sri Lanka has received over 50,000 tourists to date.
