Alliance Air launches daily service between Jaffna and Chennai

17 Jul 2023 , 02:09 PM

Alliance Air of India has started daily commercial flights between Chennai and Jaffna, Sri Lanka, up from the previous four times weekly service. This step is expected to increase travel and trade between the two nations. 

Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Union Minister of Civil Aviation, made the announcement earlier this month at the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) annual convention held in Colombo regarding the decision to enhance the frequency of flights between Chennai and the mostly Tamil city of Jaffna.

According to aviation officials, who talked to ET, regular commercial service between Chennai and the northern Jaffna International Airport (JIA) started on Sunday.

The first of daily flights along this route, which arrived in Jaffna at 11:30 a.m., was confirmed by the chief airport manager, Aruna Rajapaksa, according to a story published on Sunday by the NewsFirst news portal.

Alliance Air will begin regularly scheduled daily service between Jaffna and Chennai on July 16, 2023. According to a press statement from Sri Lanka’s Airport and Aviation Services, they will begin flying its ATR72 aircraft, which has a seating capacity of 70 passengers.

Three years after the island nation had stopped operating flights between Chennai and Jaffna because of the COVID-19 pandemic, India and Sri Lanka restarted the flights in December 2022.

In October 2019, the Jaffna International Airport in Palaly, Sri Lanka, became the country’s third international airport and welcomed its inaugural aircraft from Chennai.

For cash-strapped Sri Lanka, tourism is the main source of foreign exchange profits. However, the pandemic’s start in 2020 significantly devastated Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, which was a major contributor to the country’s economic woes.

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