After a Colombo court denied permission to an Aeroflot flight earlier this week to fly to Moscow from Colombo, the Russian flagship carrier, suspended all flights to Sri Lanka.
“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 airlines said.
It remains unclear as to why earlier this week Sri Lankan officials detained the Aeroflot Airbus A330 but according to a report by news agency AFP, current sanctions on Aeroflot due to war on Ukraine could be a likely cause.
The Russian aviation body suggested that the Russian airlines which operate using rental planes registered in foreign countries cease flights abroad, in order to avoid the seizure of those planes due to the sanctions.
The SU289 could be part of a commercial dispute since it is owned by GE Capital Aviation Services which is an Irish–American commercial aviation financing and leasing company.
The Celestial Aviation Trading Limited of Ireland filed a complaint at a Sri Lankan commercial court following which the aircraft was barred from leaving.
The Russian airlines told passengers in Colombo who are due to return on June 2, June 4 and June 5 that they will be brought back to Russia from Sri Lanka on June 4 and June 5. The repatriation flights will fly to Colombo but without passengers, the company said.
The company assured passengers that those with tickets to Moscow for later dates would also be brought home as scheduled. Aeroflot said that they could not depart from the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) due to absence of a permit.
The passengers who were onboard the seized flights were accommodated in nearby hotels, officials at the BIA told news agency AFP. They also said that they were told that the reason behind the detention was ‘likely a commercial dispute’.
The SU-289 flight still remains with Sri Lanka and the court will listen to the matter once again on June 8 and deliver its verdict. The flight is banned from leaving the country until June 16.
(with inputs from TASS, Daily Mirror LK and AFP)
Read all the Latest News here
Comments
0 comment