Chennai-Jaffna flight service of Air India postponed by 10 days

The Jaffna international flight service of Air India’s Alliance Air, which was scheduled to kick off operations from November 1, has been delayed by about 10 days “due to paperwork and certain issues that are being sorted out,” according to officials.

“There is some paperwork going on at the moment and certain approvals need to be got,” said an Air India official. “Since this is between two countries, a few issues are also being sorted out,” the official added.

“We will be finalising the date soon and we will give a couple of days for opening the booking process and make the necessary announcements soon,” the official said. A spokesperson for Alliance Air said a detailed announcement on the final plan would be made on November 4.

Air India officials, on the day of the inaugural flight on October 18, had spoken of a tax proposed by Sri Lanka on departing flights from the island to the tune of Rs 3,000 per passenger. This tax, they reasoned, would make it expensive for people to travel on this route that was finalised keeping in mind the volume of traffic expected between the two destinations.

Sri Lanka’s plan is to make Jaffna airport a gateway to the rest of the world for the majority Tamil populace of the region and ease traffic at Colombo airport.

Source: The Hindu