Alliance Air, an Air India subsidiary, has introduced that it’ll function the service 4 occasions per week. The air hyperlink, first revived in November 2019 after greater than 4 a long time, ran for simply 4 months earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic shut down worldwide borders and journey in March 2020.

When flights resumed and Sri Lanka’s main airport at Colombo reopened to worldwide flights, Jaffna International Airport remained shut.

India had pushed for the resumption of this hyperlink between Sri Lanka’s Tamil north to Tamil Nadu. But a gathering of minds on the difficulty turned attainable solely earlier this yr, within the wake of the island nation’s financial meltdown throughout which India reached out with monetary and different help.

The air hyperlink might spur financial exercise within the northern province, the principle theatre of the lengthy civil conflict. The space’s restoration has been gradual, though it has been greater than a decade because the finish of the armed battle in 2009.

The connectivity is anticipated to push tourism, together with pilgrimage tourism, from southern India to Sri Lanka’s Tamil north, bringing in worthwhile overseas change to the beleaguered Sri Lankan financial system. It might additionally draw funding to Jaffna and different components of the northern province (comprising the 5 districts of Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya) and open up enterprise and commerce alternatives between the 2 sides.

Homebound Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora dwelling in different components of the world can also discover a direct short-haul flight from Chennai to Jaffna extra handy and economical than travelling to Colombo and making one other six-hour, 400-km journey north by street or prepare.

The potential lack of enterprise at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport was possible one purpose that the Sri Lankan authorities was reluctant to reopen Jaffna International airport, earlier named Palaly airport after the city the place it’s situated.

During the civil conflict, the Palaly airfield, developed by the British as an RAF base throughout World War 2, served as an important Sri Lankan army airbase for transport of troops and provides for your entire northern space.

Part of the airport stays with the army. The Sri Lankan authorities nonetheless faces claims for compensation or return of land from its authentic Tamil homeowners, who have been evicted to make approach for the excessive safety zone.

India had proposed the opening of air hyperlinks between Jaffna and Chennai instantly after the top of the conflict in 2009, however Sri Lanka was nonetheless savouring its victory over the LTTE, and the response was tepid.

It was solely 10 years later, in 2019, that Sri Lanka lastly consented. The airport was redeveloped and renamed Jaffna International Airport, with India making a monetary contribution to the redevelopment.

A proposal to increase the hyperlink to different airports in southern India, resembling Bengaluru, Trivandrum and Hyderabad, must wait till the runway is upgraded from its current 1.4 km to a deliberate 2.3 km to allow greater plane to land.