SLAF Hercules to fly passengers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 January 1999, 22:04 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) will begin its own passenger service to fly civilians between Colombo and Jaffna. This service will be run as a commercial operation sources said. The flights were scheduled to begin this Friday, January 22.

However, the final decision on the matter will be taken tomorrow at a meeting in Palay.

Jaffna SLA, SLAF officers and the Government Agent (GA) discuss the logistics of passenger service such as issuing tickets, screening passengers, their transport to and from the Palaly SLA base etc.,

An informed source said that SLAF intends to use one of the three Hercules troop transports for the service so that a large number of people could be flown to and from Jaffna in each flight.

The Russian AN 32 aircraft which were used for commercial passenger flights earlier could accommodate only about 48.

Three Hercules transports were delivered to the SLAF last week by the British Royal Air Force said sources.