JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — IndiGo will resume flights between Tiruchirappalli and Jaffna on Oct. 1, restoring an important air link between northern Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu after a suspension of more than three months.
The Indian carrier will operate the route three times a week — on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays — and bookings have already opened.
The service was suspended in June, but IndiGo has not publicly given a specific reason for halting the Jaffna route. The suspension came as the airline was cutting back parts of its international network amid rising operating costs, weaker demand and airspace disruptions linked to tensions in West Asia.
In an announcement on June 4, IndiGo said it would suspend six international routes until Sept. 30. Jaffna was not among the destinations named, making it unclear whether the Tiruchirappalli suspension was formally part of the same retrenchment.
The return of the service is significant for the Jaffna peninsula, where international air connections remain limited despite longstanding demands for the airport to be expanded.
Flights between Tiruchirappalli and Jaffna resumed in March 2025 after a 47-year gap, initially operating six days a week. IndiGo later reduced the frequency to three flights a week. The October restart restores that reduced schedule rather than the original six-day service.
The short hop across the Palk Strait serves longstanding family, religious and commercial ties between northern Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. Tiruchirappalli is also a useful gateway for travellers from the north heading onward to destinations in the Gulf and Southeast Asia.
Jaffna’s only other direct air connection with India is IndiGo’s daily service to Chennai.
But the airport at Palaly remains constrained by its infrastructure. Its runway is about 1,400 metres long, limiting the size and type of aircraft that can operate there. IndiGo uses ATR 72 turboprops on its Jaffna services.
The airport also sits within a high-security zone, a legacy of Sri Lanka’s civil war and Palaly’s continuing military importance.
Northern politicians and business groups have for years pressed successive governments to lengthen the runway and improve the terminal, arguing that the airport cannot attract larger aircraft and more international carriers without substantial investment.
For now, the return of the Tiruchirappalli service restores Jaffna’s second direct air link with Tamil Nadu — a connection that carries significance well beyond the roughly hourlong flight across the Palk Strait.
