Nahil to launch budget airline

Business magnate Nahil Wijesuriya and related parties will invest US$ 20 million for a budget airline, which will initially fly to sub continental routes.
The initial destinations will be Chennai, Trivandrum and Bangalore in South India and later Mumbai, Wijesuriya told Daily News Business by telephone from Singapore.
"There is tremendous scope for budget carriers and all the Government has to do is to have an open skies policy and Sri Lanka will have unlimited scope like Jet and Air Sahara making headway here due to the unparalleled strategic advantage of its geographical proximities, he said.
He also implored the Government to favour the locals and not the foreigners in the spirit of the country favouring its people for the people to favour the country.
This is what is happening in the Indian Aviation industry unlike in Sri Lanka where we were pampering foreigners all the time, he said in disdain.
Wijesuriya, whose Air Lanka Ltd cargo flight, which was a single Russian aircraft, had round trips on the route Colombo- Male- Sharjah- Chennai Colombo, operated over 70 flights as a test run prior to wanting to operate passenger flights, which were to be from Colombo to Jaffna and South India.
But the then Government Agreement with Emirates was the drawback in the way of implementing the project.
The airline was disbanded and the aircraft returned. "We did not want to operate cargo flights for the rest of our lives," he said.
21/05/08 Ravi Ladduwahetty/Ceylon Daily News, Sri Lanka

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Categories: Foreign May 2008, Low Cost General May, New May 2008