After a gap of nine years, SriLankan Airlines today recommenced its operations from the city to Colombo.

The services were suspended due to economic reasons in 2008 and after evaluation and feasibility, the Airlines decided to start operations to the city, which is the 14th destination in India, SriLankan Airlines Chief Commercial Officer, Siva Ramachandran told reporters here.

The Airlines will be offering a four-times-a-week service to Coimbatore, connecting Tamil Nadu’s second largest city to the World through its global network, Siva Ramchandran said.

The new destination indeed would further strengthen ties between both countries, promoting two way travel for leisure, business, pilgrimages, health requirement and education, he said.

With this addition of flight A320neo, Sri Lankan Airlines now operates 126 flights per week to 14 cities in India, with existing services to Chennai, Trichy, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, New Delhi, Gaya, Madurai, Varanasi, kochi, Bengaluru and Kolkatta, he said.

The flights will be operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays and the fare will be Rs.11,800, he said adding that Airlines expected about 80 per cent capacity in its flight.

When asked about the increase in the fare in view of the implementation of GST in India, Siva Ramachandran said that Airlines has not seen any impact on the fare both passenger and freight so far.

The Airlines has recently added Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad and with Coimbatore adding to the map, SriLankan’s global route network has touched to 105 cities in 47 countries, Siva Ramachandran said.