Sri Lanka’s aviation and tourism industries say the country should practise an open skies policy without any restriction on the number of flights from one country to the other if post-conflict economic growth is taken to a new level.
However the government argues that national carrier, SriLankan Airlines (SLA) has not been able to face the competition in a liberalized air services framework and it has to be protected. President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the recent Central Bank’s annual report launch criticized the ‘open skies’ policies of the opposition when it was governing, saying that has adversely affected the viability of the national carrier.
"Now saving SriLankan Airlines is a problem. Instead of protecting the institutions of our country they (opposition) have helped outsiders. These agreements are a problem of us. We came to change this system."
In the South Asian region, except for the Maldives the rest of the five countries practice a closed skies policy.
Presently Sri Lanka is embroiled in an issue with the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority over its national, airline Qatar Airways’ request to increase its frequency to three flights a week, from a current two. Last year a similar incident happened with Oman Air.
Industry analysts say protectionism won’t work. “I can’t think of any country in the world which curtails other carriers coming into their countries in order to protect the national carrier. For example Emirates, the national carrier of Dubai, is a big airline, but Dubai practices an open skies policy,” one analyst said.
Malin Hapugoda, Managing Director Aitken Spence Hotel Management told the Business Times that it’s in the interest of the country to give all leverage for the national carrier to grow, but it’s also important to note that the national carrier alone cannot contribute to the tourism industry to grow to its full potential.
“In this respect it’s essential that we allow as many carriers to come into the country – for the industry to grow,” he added.
More than 50% of tourists are being carried by SLA, according to industry statistics. Dileep Mudadeniya, Managing Director Tourism Promotion Bureau, told the Business Times that the national carrier’s commercial viability needs to be protected.
“In terms of capacity SLA has increased its frequencies to destinations. Direct links to countries are the best ways of promoting destinations and unlike other carriers, SLA can do it when they strike agreements with other countries. This is what we need from SLA (rather than increasing frequencies of other airlines),”
Another industry stakeholder said that there should be more flexibility in terms of the government’s open skies policy. “We also need a ‘decent’ European carrier coming into the country,” he said, adding that many high spenders come from Europe. “In other countries too the national carrier is protected, but it’s not a one horse race,” he added.
A travel industry source said that considering that 2.5 million tourists arrivals is being targeted for 2016, the national carrier alone (together with others running at these current flight frequencies) will not be adequate to meet the incoming traffic. He said the open skies negotiations should have been handled more "diplomatically", especially since many flights were currently from the Middle East.
He also added that these were especially significant as, to date, there were no European flights coming in.
Rodney Koelmeyer, Vice President of IATA Agents Association of Sri Lanka, suggested that the government was right to bring up its concerns because, if they just gave away additional local slots without considering demand on the ground, valuable resources would be wasted. Also, the primary responsibility is to protect the interests of the national carrier. |
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