Belgium's Jetairfly (TUI) Flies to Sri Lanks in Collaboration with a Hotel Chain

25th July 2010, www.nation.lk, By Santhush Fernando

Belgium-based tour giant and one of Europe’s largest charter airlines - ‘Jetairfly’ partnering with the local hotel chain, is to commence flights to Colombo on October 30, 2010 and will lure more Western tourists during the upcoming winter season.

In terms of outbound travel, it is the biggest tour operator in Belgium and offers more than 50 tour destinations covering several continents. Jetairfly is part of world’s largest charter airline - Thomson Airways (Thomsonfly) which, in turn, is a subsidiary of TUI Travel PLC and has included Sri Lanka into its winter catalogue, promoting the island nation as its newest destination.

With the launch of ‘Jetairfly’, direct flight from Brussels to Colombo and Male from October 30, the airline expects to expand the tourist traffic in the coming winter season. ‘Jetairfly’ will fly to Sri Lanka every Saturday and is the only direct flight operating between Colombo and Brussels. It is also the newest addition to the flights which are coming to Sri Lanka from Europe.

‘It was way back in 2001 that we took the decision to re-introduce Sri Lanka to our tour catalogue and to have a direct flight from Brussels to Colombo,’ says the Communication Manager of Jetairfly, Hans Vanhaelemeesch.

‘The Pearl of the Indian Ocean remained one of our most valuable distant destinations in the past decade. The end of the conflict with the Tigers in May 2009 has given the island a new impetus, and prompted Jetairfly and Jetair to invigourate their programme of tours and beach holidays to Sri Lanka. For this winter, Jetairfly will propose direct flights to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

For the Belgian tourist, three tour packages, namely; Voyage ‘initiatique ideal’, ‘Beauté naturelle inégalée’ and ‘Sri Lanka Classique’ have been introduced.

CEO of Jetairfly NV, Bart Brackx, said,”despite the economic crisis, the Belgian travel market is expanding and as a tribute to avid Belgian traveller we are introducing Sri Lanka as our newest South Asian destination”.

In the first six months of 2010, over the corresponding period of the previous year, the tourist arrivals from Belgium have gone up by almost 60 percent, an official of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Brussels said.

Since March 2004, Jetairfly has flown to more than 70 airports in the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Caribbean, and Africa. The airline’s home base is Brussels Airport, but flights also operate from the Liege Airport, Ostend-Bruges International Airport and Brussels South Charleroi Airport. The airline carries hundreds of thousands of passengers annually and is the second largest airline in Belgium.

Jetairfly is an airline with its headquarters in Ostend, Belgium and was formerly known as TUI Airlines Belgium. It the largest leisure fleet in Europe: together with seven other airlines which are linked together by the virtual alliance of TUI Airlines, which is part of the TUI Travel PLC Group, the largest tourism group in the world and a FTSE 100 international leisure travel group listed on the London Stock Exchange. TUI Airlines groups Jetairfly, Arkefly (Holland), Corsairfly (France), TUIfly (Germany), Thomson Airways (United Kingdom), TUIfly Nordic (Sweden) and Jet4you (Morocco) with a fleet of more than hundred aircraft.