FitsAir
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| Founded | 1997 (as Expo Aviation) | |||
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| Hubs | ||||
| Focus cities |
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| Fleet size | 5 | |||
| Destinations | 13 | |||
| Company slogan | Your Friend in the Skies | |||
| Headquarters | Colombo, Sri Lanka | |||
| Key people | Shafik Kassim (Managing Director) | |||
| Website | www.fitsair.com | |||
FITS Aviation (Pvt) Limited, DBA FitsAir (formerly known as ExpoAir), is a Sri Lankan airline. It operates scheduled passenger service within Sri Lanka, as well as international cargo flights to several cities in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
ExpoAir was the first airline in Sri Lanka to be certified under the International Civil Aviation Organisation ( ICAO) annex requirements, as well as being the first domestic airline to be certified by the Department of Civil Aviation to commence flights to Jaffna.
History
Expo Aviation was established in 1997, with operations commencing in 1998 using 2 Antonov An-8 aircraft, which were later replaced by An-12s.
In 2001, Expo Aviation started domestic operations to Jaffna using Ilyushin Il-18 and Antonov An-26 aircraft. Soon after this, the airline was renamed ExpoAir.
The next year, in 2002, the airline leased 3 Fokker F27 aircraft from Oman Air. An additional IL-18 started operating in 2003, and ExpoAir launched cabin crew training in 2004.
In 2005, Expo Air applied to the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL) to operate international air cargo services to Malé, Mumbai, Tiruchirapalli, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Vizag, Kochi, Bangalore, Chennai, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Kathmandu, Chittagong, Dhaka, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Manila, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Muscat, Jeddah, Beirut, and Cairo, as well as various cities in Australia, Africa, and Europe, with the short-haul routes utilizing the Airbus A320 and long-haul routes utilizing the Airbus A330 and Airbus A340 models.[1] In 2006, ExpoAir added a Douglas DC-8 to its fleet and sold a Fokker 27.
Starting in January 2012, Expo Air relaunched its scheduled passenger flights from Ratmalana Airport to Jaffna Airport with a brand-new Cessna 208 Caravan. The aircraft has 12 seats and passengers are able to reach Jaffna in less than 1 hour.
Destinations
Expo flies to the following services to scheduled domestic and international destinations:
| [H] | Hub |
| [F] | Future destination |
| ^ | Passenger + Cargo |
| [C] | Freighter aircraft only |
| [T] | Terminated destination |
Fleet
The Expo Aviation fleet includes the following aircraft:[2]
| Aircraft | Total | Orders | Passengers (Economy) |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antonov An-12 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Cessna 208 Caravan | 1 | 0 | 12 | 4R-EXL |
| Douglas DC-8-63CF | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4R-EXJ |
| Fokker F27-500RF | 3 | 0 | 0 | |
| Ilyushin Il-76 | 1 | 0 | 0 | is also operated in cooperation with Lufthansa Cargo |
| Total | 7 | 0 |
Retired
The airline has also operated the following types:
| Aircraft | Total | Introduced | Retired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airbus A320 family | |||
| Airbus A330 | |||
| Airbus A340 | |||
| Antonov An-26 | |||
| Ilyushin Il-18 |
Other Business
ExpoAir has a leasing arm that wet- and dry-leases aircraft to third parties. In 2005, an F27 was dry-leased to Pakistan International Airlines, and in 2006, the airline wet-leased a Douglas DC8-63CF to Air Mauritius. In 2007, it dry-leased another F27 aircraft to Mihin Lanka. In 2008, it wet-leased a Beech Super King Air 200 from South Africa and sub-leased the aircraft to the UN arm of WFP for operations in Sri Lanka.
External links
References
- ↑ Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka 11 April 2005
- ↑ "Directory: World Airlines". Flight International. 2007-04-03. p. 80.
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