Private international airline services
By Rohan Gunasekera
The government is looking into the possibility of allowing domestic airlines
to operate international passenger services under its new "open skies"
policy, Civil Aviation Minister Tilak Marapana said.
"Our policy is to liberalise and to allow the private sector to participate
in a bigger way," he told The Sunday Times Business.
The ministry has sought cabinet approval for local private operators
to resume domestic flights and also to operate international passenger
services, he said.
To allow other operators to carry passengers on international flights,
the government intends to renegotiate the SriLankan Airlines privatisation
agreement with Emirates, Marapana said.
"We also need to have bilateral talks with other countries to negotiate
for landing rights," he said. Private carriers might be allowed to operate
international passenger flights on routes the national carrier does not
use, he said.
"Already, we have had inquiries from domestic operators," he said. Nahil
Wijesuriya, a top Sri Lankan businessmen and chairman of Airlanka International
Ltd, said his company for the past two months has been operating a cargo
flying service between Dubai, India and Pakistan. "We will be operating
cargo services from Colombo to Male too and have applied for a licence
for passenger services," Wijesuriya, also chairman of the CWE, said.
Director General of Civil Aviation Lal Liyanaarachchi said the policy
was to develop the market through competition.
Currently, the national carrier SriLankan Airlines is the only locally
registered airline that can operate international passenger services.
The Director General of Civil Aviation cannot issue licences for international
passenger services to other operators without prior cabinet approval, Liyanaarachchi
said.
The only other domestic airline operating at the moment is Expo Aviation,
which carries cargo mainly to destinations in the Gulf.
Marapana revealed the government's intention of allowing domestic airlines
to operate international passenger services at a recent conference of senior
civil aviation officials in the South Asian region.
The government will shortly formulate a national civil aviation policy
and a civil aviation development plan, Marapana told the Steering Committee
of the Co-operative Development of Operational Safety and Continuing Airworthiness
Programme of South Asia (COSCAP).
It intends to replace the Civil Aviation Department with a Civil Aviation
Authority with adequate administrative and financial autonomy and replace
the Air Navigation Act of 1950 with a Civil Aviation Act to provide an
updated legal framework to meet modern-day requirements of civil aviation,
Marapana said.
The COSCAP is a co-operative agreement between India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
It is an International Civil Aviation Organisation project that aims
to create a core of qualified flight operations and airworthiness inspectors
whose skills will be shared by member states. The project's aim is to improve
the safety and efficiency of air transport in the region by sharing resources
and providing expertise to member states to train civil aviation personnel. |
