India: Nowadays, India plays an important role in Srilankan airlines, and now the CEO of the aircraft company, Richard Nuttall, interviewed the media in which he said New Delhi, India, helped the Sri Lanka airline’s economic crisis.
He also stated, ” Sri Lanka contains many things, like wellness, adventure, tourism, and ayurveda, and these are the reason why people love to visit Sri Lanka, and this will boost the country’s tourism back.”
โBut going east, we are uniquely positioned. We are right at the turn of India. And for many going east, no airline is more geographically placed to take advantage. Sri Lankans understand the meaning of tourism well, so they provide the best services and real hospitality that works very well in Indian markets, he added.
Moreover, he added that India is a main source of tourism for Sri Lanka, and now India is sponsoring or helping Sri Lanka.
CEO Nuttall also thanked India for their support to Sri Lanka and also said New Delhi is the one who provided fuel and civil aviation authorities to Sri Lanka, which helped the country a lot.
According to airlines, the major reason for the shrinking economy is COVID-19, as well as the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, because that hiked the prices of aviation turbine fuel (ATF).
It was July or August when Sri Lanka faced a fuel crisis for the first time, and the national airline had to operate without any jet fuel. But we are lucky that national airlines were actually aware that what was going on in the country. So they gradually reduced the airline quota. So, we stopped deck stops in India. Initially, we hardly got approvals from India firstly, then slowly, by the time they got faster approvals, everyone knew what was going on, and they all were very helpful and supportive, and we got support from airport and oil companies,” he said.