Tigerair stops flying to Colombo after 21 August

Report by : Gan Yung Chyan
                 / KUCINTA SETIA
Distributed to All Press & Travel Professionals

Despite a boom in domestic and regional tourism in Sri Lanka, Tigerair is suspending flights to Colombo from Singapore after 21 August 2013 instead of 1 September as it is incurring heavy losses on this route, although there is a great demand from Sri Lankan customers for the only budget flight to Southeast Asia.

The Colombo office of Tigerair mentions that the airline cannot sell fares higher than 133 Singapore Dollars, prompting the revamped carrier to cancel flights instead.

There will be no budget flights to Colombo anymore from Singapore. Tigerair did not mention whether it will fly to the new Mattala International Airport near Colombo.

Refunds are in progress.

Sri Lanka has seen more passenger traffic on SriLankan Airlines and Mihin Lanka flights from Medan, Jakarta, India, the Middle East and other parts of Asia and Europe instead with new domestic airlines emerging such as SriLankan Air Taxi, Cinnamon Air and Millenium Airlines operated by Simplifly (formerly Deccan Aviation Lanka). Maldivian launched flights from Gan to Colombo on 7 August 2013 after taking over Mega Maldives Airlines' flights to Chongqing.