Tourism authorities hopeful of Aeroflot’s return soon

Sri Lanka’s tourism authorities remain optimistic of Russia’s national carrier Aeroflot resuming its scheduled flights between Colombo and Moscow, shortly.

Aeroflot suspended its commercial operations to Sri Lanka following a Sri Lankan court grounded one of its aircraft at Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) in connection to a legal dispute between the aircraft’s Irish owner and Aeroflot. 

The incident created a diplomatic row and a few days after the enjoining order was lifted, the aircraft was allowed to leave BIA. “It will take few days before they resume operations. But definitely they will come back. In addition to the benefits they brought to our country, it was a profitable route for them as well. So, we will wait for few days,” Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority Chairman Priantha Fernando said.

However, the officials at Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) (Private) Limited and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) noted that the airline has not made any commitment to resume flights up 
to now.

“They have not committed yet. But we believe they are planning on resuming flights soon.  However, they will likely run into the existing issues of jet fuel shortage and fund repatriation issues,” a CAA official said. 

In the first two months of 2022, Russia became the top source market for Sri Lanka’s tourism industry.
However, since then, Russian tourist arrivals have been on the decline, with the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war. Despite that, the direct flight between Moscow and Colombo continued to bring in a considerable number of Russian tourists to the island nation.

After Aeroflot suspended its operations to Colombo on June 2, Russian tourist arrivals fell to 1,610 in the month. Despite operating for mere two days a week, Aeroflot accounted for 14.9 percent of Russian tourist arrivals in June. 

FlyDubai has emerged as the most popular airline among Russian tourists in the absence of Aeroflot, accounting for 35.2 percent of the Russian arrivals in the month.