Alliance Air flights foray into Jaffna 4 days a week

Alliance Air of India with an aim to provide unified Asset Holding Services as stated in Object Clauses of its Memorandum of Association will launch international flights starting between Chennai International airport and Jaffna International airport.

“Jaffna passengers for the first time will get the opportunity to connect to international destinations like Dubai and Muscat. In addition they could also get connections to Indian destinations like Delhi, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Trivandrum,’ an Alliance Air official said.

This flight is special in many ways as its Alliance Air’s maiden international foray and it also connects Chennai to Jaffna after a gap of 41 years.

“With the vision to connect to our neighboring countries, it is our endeavour to offer better air connectivity to all our neighbors with their closest city hubs. The airline will operate an ATR aircraft with a seating capacity of 70 every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday leaving Chennai at 9 25 a.m. and Jaffna at 11 50 a.m. with a flight time of 1 hour 25 minutes. Surain Ediriweera from Alliance Air said that the airline will also look at flying to Ratmalana from mid next year. The route was popular in pre-C19 times among tourists, Lankan Tamils, traders and pilgrims.

The airline, which is managed by the government of India, had started flights to Jaffna in November 2019 but had to discontinue after the pandemic struck. Jaffna was the airline’s maiden international destination. Ediriweera said that while they were in India for a road show there were tremendous requests to resume this sector and the airline has agreed to this.