Russia's Aeroflot resumes commercial flights in Sri Lanka after legal row
Oct 10, 2022
Colombo [Sri Lanka], October 10 : Months after Russia's Aeroflot suspended its commercial flights to Colombo over a legal row, it resumed services between Colombo and Moscow on Monday, media reports said.
The Aeroflot flight landed at the Bandaranaike International Airport on Monday, the Daily Mirror reported. Among those who were present to welcome the flight crew and passengers were government officials, Minister of Aviation Nimal Siripala de Silva, Tourism Minister Harin Fernando, and Tourism Authority officials, it added.
On June 4, Russia's Aeroflot suspended its commercial flights to Colombo after Sri Lankan authorities detained its Airbus A330 jet.
"Aeroflot is suspending commercial flights to Colombo (Sri Lanka) for the immediate period due to an unreliable situation in terms of the airline's unobstructed flights to Sri Lanka. The sales of tickets for flights to Colombo have been temporarily shut down," the statement noted.
Sri Lanka's Airport and Aviation Services had issued a statement in which it stated that the flight to Moscow, which was scheduled to take off on June 2, has been restrained due to the absence of a permit from Sri Lanka's aviation authorities.
According to the release, the Commercial High Court had noted that the dispute between Aeroflot-Russian Airlines and Celestial Aviation Trading Limited was purely a matter of a commercial nature which should be dealt with between the said two parties and no involvement of the state was emphasised.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had also said it had summoned Ambassador of Sri Lanka Janitha Abeywickrama Liyanage and had protested in connection with the detention of an Aeroflot plane at the Bandaranaike airport, Daily Mirror reported.
