Kolkata Flights Are Likely to Resume Soon with SriLankan Airlines

Following the availability of aircraft, SriLankan Airlines, which used to operate direct flights between Kolkata and Colombo before to the COVID-19 outbreak, is expected to restart its operations in the city, a company official said. According to V Ravindran, regional manager of Sri Lanka’s national carrier, the airline is now focusing on customers from this area who would go to the capital of the island nation through other towns in India.

Kolkata will be taken into consideration as soon as planes are available. We are unable to provide you with a timeframe at this moment for when the airline will restart operations out of Kolkata, Ravindran added. He said that while choosing whether to resume flights from Kolkata, where the airline began operations in 2017, the need for a direct link would also be taken into account. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the airline had three flights a week between Kolkata and Colombo.

There were 11 destinations served by SriLankan Airlines in India before to the COVID-19-induced lockout. With the exception of Kolkata and Coimbatore, it restarted operations at nine of them after the outbreak. Between January and June of this year, according to Ravindran, the airlines transported 1,15,000 visitors from India to Sri Lanka.

On Wednesday, Ravindran visited many travel brokers in Kolkata. They also questioned him over the airline’s intention to resume direct flights from Kolkata to Colombo. According to Anjani Kumar Dhanuka, honorary secretary of the eastern region of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), he informed the travel agents that it would take some time.

Several airlines have yet to restart operations in Kolkata after the epidemic, while others have—mostly foreign carriers.