Mihin Lanka to wind up this year

Sri Lanka’s budget airline, Mihin Lanka will wind up its operations this year.The airline will be absorbed to the national carrier SriLankan, Public Enterprises Development Minister Kabir Hashim said. Mihin Lanka’s destination network includes Dhaka in Bangladesh, Jakarta and Medan in Indonesia as well as Madurai, Kolkata, Gaya and Varanasi in India.

The airline also flies to Sharjah and Bahrain in the Middle East, as well as Lahore in Pakistan and the Seychelles. The airline also launched daily flights to Jakarta from yesterday.He said that the airlines’ aircraft will be taken over re-branded as SriLankan.

“Mihin Lanka has some important routes like to Jakarta and Bangladesh and we want to retain them.We will ask SriLankan Airlines to service these routes after the merger.” Hashim said that since this is a merger the existing staff will not be affected and their ‘jobs’ will be secure.

He said the rationale behind merging with Sri Lankan was to cut costs.He also said that that during the previous regime the airline business was not taken seriously and ‘snap’ decisions like creating Mihin Lanka was taken creating a heavy final burden to the country.