In November 2008, the state-owned airlines had signed an agreement with Bombardier Aerospace to purchase eight Q400 NextGen turboprop airliners. Wake said that they had placed orders for more airliners due to the expectation of higher traffic in 2010. He acknowledged that Bombardier’s performance including longer range, higher payload and lower operability cost were the major factors which compelled them to opt for the same airliner once again.

EA saw a turnaround in profits ever since it won Best African Airline Award in 2006. The airlines recorded just about $16mn profit in 2006-07 fiscal but the profits soared ever after its sustained efforts on marketing Ethiopia began in large scale since early last year.

EA is one of the largest airlines from the African continent, and one of the few flight operators that has made profits in the current global financial mess. It should be noted, EA’s profit story came especially after last year the International Air Traffic Association (IATA) predicted major downward shake-up in the profits of many air carriers from the region.

Several African air carriers suffered losses owing to decline in traffic from Europe last year. Africa being described as the major growing power in aviation industry saw close to 9 percent slide in total traffic and flights to Europe registered around 10 percent decline.

EA feels if the fuel prices remained stable; it would not be a problem to generate same kind of profit this fiscal too. The air carrier is embarked on a massive marketing drive in the US to attract tourists to its country including roping in the services of NBA legend Manute Bol as brand ambassador of the airline.

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The ESI statement said except Macedonia none of the other Western Balkan states were able to meet the benchmarks to come under visa-free regime. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s speedy liberalization process in the areas including document security, internal stability, re-enforcement of the borders in terms of asylum and migration and strict adherence to human rights issues makes them eligible candidate for visa-free travel across the EU states. Besides, the country is understood to have issued 40 percent biometric passports, a mandate needed to be fulfilled by all EU member-states by July this year.

Macedonians spend 5mn Euros every year on Schengen visas which help them to travel across 15 countries in the EU. Visa-free travel is expected to eliminate not only the expenses incurred while application but also the cumbersome procedure involved in obtaining visa to each and every country of one’s travel.

It should be recalled that last month, foreign Ministers of Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania sent a joint letter to the EC urging them to include all Western Balkan states that met the criteria to the visa-free regime by early 2010. Visa liberalization to these countries is expected to boost trade and tourism of several European countries closer to these states.

Only country that has visa-free access among the Western Balkans is Croatia. Though Serbia has met all the benchmarks of the roadmap is being held up by the Netherlands over Belgrade’s cooperation with an international war crimes court. However, since last year the Serbians enjoy the ease of obtaining visas to students, athletes, journalists, people visiting family or working with companies in the EU.

The visa restrictions were imposed as an aftermath of Yugoslav wars in 1990’s. Currently, the citizens of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia need visas to travel to the EU.

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Sri Lanka was devastated by terrorism sponsored by the LTTE that demanded separate land carved out of the country for the ethnic Tamil minority of Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese community forms the majority of the population and a large number of them follow Buddhism. Currently, its defence forces are in the final stages of completely wiping out the last bastion of the terror outfit to free the country from the prolonged violence of two decades.

Ravinatha Aryasinha, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union (EU) said the re-branding would encourage foreign tourists to look at Sri Lanka with new eyes and enable the country to position itself as a destination second to none. He added the core idea was to change the perception of the travellers from far-away lands that the country has returned to normalcy where everyone could experience its rich culture and beautiful locales peacefully. He also drew attention to the fact that despite the country had to bear the brunt of terrorism Sri Lanka grew by about 6 percent in recent years, and continued to invite steady flow of foreign investments and tourists.

According to sources, Sri Lanka is planning to launch several promotional programs through print and electronic media to tide over its ‘unsafe’ image abroad. At the re-branding function the state-owned Sri Lankan Airlines launched “Buy One, Get One Free” sales theme targeting the European travellers. The tour operators’ primary focus would be to promote Sri Lanka as a safe tourist destination, and thereby remove it from the list of travel advisories by several countries.

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