Peace Air ties up with Chinese company to purchase 8 Bell helicopters | Daily News

Peace Air ties up with Chinese company to purchase 8 Bell helicopters

Vice President, Peace Air, Ireha Wethasinghe exchanging the agreement with Chairman, Jinlianan International Li Xianglin looked on by Director, M. Lee in Colombo. Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe
Vice President, Peace Air, Ireha Wethasinghe exchanging the agreement with Chairman, Jinlianan International Li Xianglin looked on by Director, M. Lee in Colombo. Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe

Peace Air Pvt. Ltd signed up an helicopter purchase and maintenance agreement with Chairman, Jinlianan International Investment Consultant (Beijing) Co., Ltd. Chongqing, China. This is to launch a domestic Helicopter aviation service in Sri Lanka.

Vice President, Peace Air Pvt Ltd, Ireha C. Wethasinghe said that they hope to purchase 8 Bell helicopters (5 and 18 seater) under this agreement and two would be delivered by early next month. “Our total requirement is 8 helicopters and we hope finalize the complete deal by end 2019. The domestic operations would be operated under Peace Air Helicopter Service.”

She said that they will launch daily flights to most of the domestic airports from both Ratmalana and Colombo international airport. “We will also use the smaller aircraft for domestic charters.”

A local airline crew consisting of mostly former Air Force officers would be recruited to for the operation and they will also launch an online ticketing platform so that passengers could plan their journey in advance.

Chairman, Jinlianan International Investment Consultant (Beijing), Li Xianglin, said that they have observed that Sri Lanka tourism sector is growing rapidly and decided to assist Peace Air Pvt Ltd, to raise capital not only for their Helicopter Service but also for their international airline operations which would be launched on Independence Day on February 4.

He said that the Chinese government has now allowed several domestic airports to operate direct flights and Peace Air would be flying to these destinations. There are around 18 million Chinese that travel overseas and I think Sri Lanka can easily attract 30% of this market which would be about 5. 4 million passengers per year.”

Chairman Peace Air, Gamini Wethasinghe said that they will also look at operating to new European destinations and also to routes like Paris, Frankfurt, Milan and Hong Kong which were abandoned by SriLankan.

 


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