Aeroflot’s repatriation flight departs BIA with stranded Russian passengers

An Aeroflot Airlines Airbus A330-300 which arrived empty from Moscow this morning (05 June) to take back 275 Russian passengers in Colombo, departed a short while ago from the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA). 

Russia’s flagship carrier yesterday announced that it is suspending commercial flights to Sri Lanka after the island nation’s authorities detained the airline’s Airbus A330 jet on June 02.

“Aeroflot is suspending commercial flights to Colombo (Sri Lanka) for the immediate period due to an unreliable situation in terms of the airline’s unobstructed flights to Sri Lanka. The sales of tickets for flights to Colombo have been temporarily shut down,” Russian state-owned news agency TASS said quoting the airline.

In its statement, Aeroflot has said its passengers located in Colombo with return tickets for the 2nd, 4th and 5th of June will be brought to Russia on the 4th and 5th of June.

Repatriation planes will fly to Colombo without passengers, it added.

Passengers with tickets to Moscow for later dates will also be brought to Russia as scheduled, the airline assured.

On Friday (June 03), Aeroflot reported that the departure of its SU-289 flight from Colombo to Moscow scheduled for June 2 was at first delayed and then cancelled due to the absence of permit from Sri Lanka’s aviation authorities.

Passengers of the cancelled flight were subsequently accommodated at hotels in Colombo.

Earlier, Colombo’s Commercial High Court satisfied a complaint filed by Ireland’s Celestial Aviation Trading Limited leasing company against Aeroflot and banned its Airbus A330 jet from leaving the country until June 16. A court hearing to lift the seizure of the aircraft is scheduled for June 8, 2022.