SriLankan Airlines is expected to play a pivotal role in the country’s economic recovery. Fully owned and backed by the Government of Sri Lanka, the Airline was forced to suspend scheduled services in early April as Sri Lanka took a tough stand on battling COVID-19. Now, with Sri Lanka’s health and safety situation under control, the Airline is ready to take to the skies and connect Sri Lanka with the world again. Discussing the reopening of Sri Lanka’s borders, the Chairman of SriLankan Airlines, Ashok Pathirage said, “Despite the challenges we face, we are looking forward to the reopening. Even though scheduled services were suspended, as the National Carrier, we have been working to provide relief flights to repatriate stranded Sri Lankans and other nationals. We have also been providing much needed cargo facilities to support our export industries and bring down essential emergency equipment and supplies to deal with the pandemic. We have been working around the clock to adapt our operations to meet health & safety guidelines and the challenging requirements of the ‘new normal’.” Ashok Pathirage is one of Sri Lanka’s foremost business leaders and is the founder of the Softlogic Group, a leading Sri Lankan conglomerate. In addition to his role as Chairman of SriLankan Airlines, Pathirage oversees more than 50 market-leading companies with interests in retail, telecommunications, healthcare, finance, IT, leisure and autos. He was invited by the Government of Sri Lanka to assume control of SriLankan Airlines in late 2019, with a view to transforming it into a more profitable and progressive enterprise. Elaborating on the health and safety measures taken by SriLankan Airlines, Pathirage explained, “We have taken every reasonable precaution to minimize …
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