First flight fiasco

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 March 1998, 23:59 GMT]
Passengers waiting to catch the first flight of the Monara Airlines to Colombo at the Palaly airbase today were stranded as the aircraft of the new service which had flown in from the capital returned without picking them up.

Officals in Jaffna town said that this was due to bungling on the part of the local agent of the Monara airlines. Forty passengers, including EPDP's rebel MP R. Ramamoorthy, were left high and dry by the Monara flight which had come few passengers from the Ratmalana base near Colombo around 9 a.m. this morning.

The flight had returned immediately due to poor co-ordination said sources in Jaffna.

The Lion Air, another private operator, had an extremely profitable monopoly on civilian air trafic to and from Jaffna until the arrival of Monara (which in Sinhalese means peacock).