Starting from the first of this month regular flights to Jaffna from Colombo is operated by a local carrier FitsAir, the friend in the skies. With an all-inclusive, which includes carry-on baggage 7kg free of charge for one way fare is LKR 7,500/- and excess baggage fees of LKR 750/- for the first 20kg; plus LKR 100/- for each additional kg.
FitsAir schedule flights are on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday that departs Ratmalana, Colombo at 7.30 am with 9.30 am arrival in Palai, Jaffna. Return flight departs from Palai at 8.20 am, that arrives back to Ratmalana at 10.20 am. On other days of the week already available are fights operated by Sri Lankan Air Force.
Scheduled flights from Chennai to Jaffna three times a week commenced with Air India’s regional unit Alliance Air granting special dispensation by the Indian government to operate between India and Sri Lanka, thus regular international flights exist from Palai to Chennai. While FitsAir operate charter flights to Chennai, Tiruchirappalli. The government has plans for the airport to have flights to other Indian destinations and flights to Maldives have also been mooted. The runway is expected to be extended to 2,300 metres in phase 2 to allow the airport to handle 150-seater aircraft such as the Airbus A320 and Airbus A321, enabling flights to other parts of Asia and Europe. Phase 3 will see the runway extended to 3,200 meters, capable of accommodating 200-seater aircraft.
Thus many people in the north are today benefited by the daily connectivity by air resumed after a long gap to Colombo and international destinations as Chennai in India. It is expected that more carriers will touch down at Palali with their commercial flights after completion of next phases of development scheduled to start soon.
Northern Breeze 