By Mahadiya Hamza
COLOMBO – SriLankan Airlines has started refuelling its aircraft in Chennai, Dubai, and Singapore due to a shortage of jet fuel in Colombo amid a foreign currency scarcity, sources said.
The shortage has also led the Airport and Aviation Services Sri Lanka (Private) Limited (AASL) to inform foreign flights to take necessary steps in refuelling.
“There is less jet fuel in Colombo. So we have been using Chennai, Dubai, and Singapore to refuel SriLankan Airlines’ flights,” a source from the state-run SriLankan Airlines confirmed under anonymity.
The island’s main Bandaranaike International Airport has a 7.8 million litre capacity fuel tank, while Mattala International airport has a 3 million litre fuel tank.
However, Sri Lanka’s economic crisis with a severe shortage of dollars has led to a scarcity of fuel, Sri Lanka has been sourcing fuel from an Indian credit line.
“We informed the (foreign) airlines 10-days ago that the airport is running on limited fuel, so to take necessary measures,” another source from Sri Lanka’s airports said.
“We do have fuel for emergency purposes but this matter is entirely handled by CPC (Ceylon Petroleum Corporation). They are the ones who supply the fuel to the airports.”
Officials from CPC were not immediately available for comments.
Experts say there is a possibility of airlines cancelling their flights to Sri Lanka as using an alternative route just to refuel is an added cost to the airlines unless there adequate traffic.
AASL officials said late in April that their daily consumption was around 1.3 million litres amid a drop in air traffic to the country with the onset of the off tourism season and the Ukraine-Russia war.
-economynext.com