Sri Lanka has a new low cost airline.
FitsAir started commercial flights on 05 October, 2002 with the inaugural flight from Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) to Dubai International Airport (DXB).
The airline is privately owned and until now has been (mainly) a cargo airline under the names Expo Air and Expo Aviation.
To start with, passengers can buy flights between Colombo and either Dubai or Male.
There are three flights a week on the 4 hour 45 minute trip to Dubai and also three flights a week to Male, taking about 90 minutes. The airline expects both route to become daily.
The next new route is expected to be between Colombo and Trichy (TRZ) in south India on 28 October.
The big plan seems to be to offer ‘affordable’ scheduled flight in south and southeast Asia and to Gulf Council Countries.
The airline plans to operate a hub at Jaffna and also to restart domestic flights from Colombo’s Ratmalana (RML), the capital’s second airport.
The airline plans to start flights between Colombo’s Ratmalana Airport (RML), the capital’s second airport, and Jaffna and then develop a mini-hub in Jaffna, to serve a range of South Indian cities.
Jaffna is in the northern tip of Sri Lanka and is close to India.
Fleet
FitsAir has three Airbus A320-200 aircraft in a two-class layout with 156 seats in economy and 8 in Economy Plus.
Flights out of Ratmalana and Jaffna would be served with 70-seat turboprop aircraft.
Domestic flights
FitsAir has already flown domestically.
The airline started flights between Colombo Airport, Ratmalana to the Palaly Airport, Jaffna in 2002.
The domestic services have been discontinued temporarily with plans to start again in the near future under the new branding.
