War forces crisis-hit Sri Lanka to end Moscow flights

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka has stopped its lucrative flights to Moscow as insurance rates became prohibitive after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the country's national airline announced Monday.

Both Russia and Ukraine were among the top three tourism-generating markets for Sri Lanka, a nation grappling with its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1948.

Sri Lankan Airlines operated three flights a week to the Russian capital until fighting broke out last month and had reduced the frequency to two.

The airline said it was compelled to pull the once highly profitable Moscow flights due to the steep operating costs after war broke out and difficulties in repatriating profits from Russia.

The South Asian nation had banked on tourists from the two warring nations to earn much-needed foreign exchange to finance the import of food, fuel and medicines.

The airline said its pullout was due to "operational restrictions that are outside of the airline's control" and promised to refund those with flight bookings.

Out of the 82,300 foreign tourists who visited Sri Lanka in January about 13,500 or 16.4 per cent were Russians, followed by 11,750 Indians and 7,770 Ukrainians.

The collapse of the leisure sector soon after the pandemic broke out in 2020 saw Sri Lanka lose more than four billion dollars in lost tourism revenue.

The country's best year for tourism was 2018 when it earned $4.38 billion from tourism and welcomed 2.3 million visitors.

Sri Lanka is currently in the grip of severe shortages of food and fuel as commercial banks have run out of dollars to finance essential imports.

Colombo has said it will seek an IMF bailout as the country's foreign currency reserves had hit $2 billion at the end of February, compared to $7.5 billion two years ago.

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