Sri Lanka’s budget airline, Mihin Lanka is to resume flights from December 21, an airline official said.

The airline will lease an aircraft from France to re-launch these operations, which will fly daily to Dubai, Trichy and Trivandram with the resumption of the flight.

“The airline is now in the process of evaluating tenders to seal the best option to wet lease the aircraft. Since we are hoping to obtain a wet lease, it is expected that the lessee would provide us with pilots and some crew members,” a top official said.

It is expected that the Government would once again come out to fund the airline.

He also dismissed speculation that the airline would not merge with SriLankan Airlines.

“However we are looking at synergies where both could work together, he said.

Mihin, which was flying to Trichy, Trivandram, Buddhagaya, Maldives, Bangkok and Singapore, halted operations. Mihin flights have been operating with a 60 per cent load factor which was very encouraging.