India enhances Palaly airport with Rs.300m grant
View(s):Palaly airport currently under renovation to meet international standards is likely to become the centre of business and tourist traffic between Sri Lanka’s North and India with the latter providing a Rs.300 million grant to boost the facility.
Civil Aviation authorities have initiated plans to develop the airport with a large component of the budget amounting to Rs.20 billion spent on the renovation of the airport.
The 3.5 km runway is currently being developed and under the first phase of the project it is expected to only be able to handle single aisle aircraft flying into Jaffna, which would essentially be aircraft used by most budget carriers.
The Indians have been interested in operating direct flight services from Jaffna to some of the Southern states of India like Madurai or Tiruchi in Tamil Nadu or Thiruvanathapuram in Kerala.
Once completed, the Palaly airport will be managed and operated by the Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd as the third international airport.
At present there is one terminal that has a capacity of about 200 people and currently the SLAF operates Hercules C130 and Antonov An32 transport aircraft and Helitours run Chinese Xian MA60 type aircraft.
Though authorities have indicated that flights to China and Australia would be able to take off this would be part of the second phase of the development of the airport, industry officials said.
Initially flights to India on some of the budget carriers could operate from the Palaly airport which will continue to be managed by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF).
Demand is likely to happen due to increased business traffic that moves between the two destinations over the years.
Last year the Indian High Commission had issued around 15,400 business visas and 121,000 tourists visas from Sri Lanka.
In this respect, it was noted that with a majority of the visas issued in Colombo one third of the business traffic was also found to come mainly from Jaffna and Kandy where Indian consul offices are located.
(Sunimalee)