Sri Lanka is getting about 1,000 passengers a day including tourists and returning residents after airports formally opened in January with the bulk of tourist traffic coming to Mattala airport, an official said.

A planned ‘air-bubble’ with India and vaccination progress around the world will help boost the aviation sector,

“On average with repatriation and tourists we get about 1000 passengers per day coming to the country,” Shehan Sumanasekara, Chief Director-Operations (All airports), Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) told EconomyNext.

“From January 21st, we have got most of the airlines which were previously running to Sri Lanka on schedule basis.”

Sri Lanka used to get over 5 million foreign and SriLanka arrivals a month (over 13,500 a day), mainly from Katunayake before Coronavirus lockdowns stopped tourism, expatriate and business traffic.

SriLankan, Qatar, Etihad, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, China Eastern, Oman Airlines, Singapore and Kuwait Airways and Salam Airways have started.

This month AirAstana from Kazakshtan started regular charters. On Thursday Sri Lanka saw the first flight by Sunday Airlines, the charter arm of Kazakh carrier SCAT Airlines.

Sumanasekara said since opening Bandaranayake Airport (BIA) received about 478 tourists’ arrivals and the Mattala Rajapaksa Airport (MRIA) has welcomed about 3,000 tourists since airports re-opened in January 21.

Sri Lanka welcomed about 1,635 tourists in January 2021 after airports were re-opened and post-Coronavirus tourism resumed under a ‘bio-bubble’ concept of limiting contact with the resident population.

The top five tourist source markets during January 2021 were Ukraine, Belarus, China, Russian Federation and Germany. Travelers from the Netherlands, Canada, India, the United States and Maldives have also visited the country.

Source: economynext.com via Travel Voice