Sri Lanka-Seychelles |08 August 2013

Direct flights to start in October

The government of Sri Lanka and representatives of the Sri Lankan Airlines have announced that the airline will introduce direct services to Seychelles in October 2013.  

The airline will operate three return services per week from Colombo to Seychelles and subject to regulatory approvals, offer a through service to Nairobi.

The announcement was made at a meeting held in Victoria between officials of the government of Sri Lanka, the government of Seychelles, and representatives from the air transport sectors of the two countries.

Seychelles has agreed to a wide-ranging commercial agreement that will give customers of Sri Lankan Airlines convenient access to Air Seychelles’ regional network in the Indian Ocean and South Africa, including additional services from Colombo to Seychelles via Abu Dhabi.  

Customers of Air Seychelles will in turn enjoy access to new points in Sri Lanka, China, Japan, and Southern India, as well as Nairobi.  

The Minister for Home Affairs and Transport Joel Morgan said: “I commend the spirit of collaboration that has developed between the parties here today and the commitment and drive to make the new flights a success. The new services will boost business and leisure traffic to our islands, extend the networks of both airlines in attractive ways and shall delight their customers.”

“This is a great advance in the ties between Seychelles and Sri Lanka and I am confident it will facilitate further development of political and economic relations between the two countries,” Minister Morgan added.

He reiterated the full support of the Seychelles government to the venture by Sri Lankan Airlines.
The Seychelles delegation at the meeting, led by Minister Morgan, included Terence Mondon, the principal secretary in the Department of Transport; David Savy, the chairman of the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority; Gilbert Faure, the chief executive officer of the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority; Shelley Cole, the chief finance officer of Air Seychelles; Alan Renaud, the general manager for Corporate Affairs at Air Seychelles and Matthew MacMillan, the director of Alliances of Etihad Airways.

The Sri Lankan delegation was led by Sajin de Vass Gunawardena, monitoring member of parliament of the Ministry of External Affairs of Sri Lanka, and included Shehan Ratnavale, the high commissioner for Sri Lanka; H.M.C. Nimalasiri, the director general  of Civil Aviation and chief executive officer of Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka, as well as Mohamed Fazeel, the head of Commercial Operations of Sri Lankan Airlines and Rohana Perera, the head of Commercial of Mihin Lanka, a private airline.