Tag Archives: SriLankan Airlines

With a focus on the Indian market, SriLankan Airlines intends to increase its frequencies to 13 flights per week to Delhi and 14 flights a week to Mumbai. According to Chinthaka Weerasinghe, Country Manager, SriLankan Airlines, “We are keen on increasing the destinations and flight frequencies in India as the demand is constantly on the rise. With the new development ventures, we anticipate significant passenger numbers from our key contributors to inbound tourism traffic that includes India, China, Europe, Australia and the Maldives.” India has been a vital partner in SriLankan Airlines’ route network from the early days since it is Sri Lanka’s number one source of inbound tourist traffic. Today, the airline directly operates to 14 Indian destinations with a total of 135 flights a week. Weerasinghe adds, “The Indian government authorities and related state institutions have always been a firm supporter to all SriLankan Airlines and Sri Lanka Tourism projects.”

SriLankan Airlines extended its route network with the launch of daily non-stop services to Melbourne on October 29, 2017. Ajith Dias, Chairman of Sri Lanka’s national carrier, said: “We at SriLankan Airlines are delighted to launch this new service, which we have no doubt would be of great convenience to all segments of travelers, including the large number of Sri Lankans domiciled in Australia, the many Australians who love to travel overseas and people throughout Asia who visit Down Under.” Sri Lankan expatriates and students form a large and significant community in Australia, and frequently travel back to their native land. Many of them reside in Melbourne, and other cities in the state of Victoria and neighbouring New South Wales, with smaller numbers throughout the rest of Australia and New Zealand. Captain Suren Ratwatte, CEO of SriLankan Airlines, said: “We have been extending our route network in a systematic manner throughout Asia – from the Middle East to the Far East – and can now provide Australian travelers excellent options in connectivity, with one-stop journeys to the most popular destinations via Colombo.” A member of the prestigious oneworld global airline alliance, SriLankan offers convenient connections to 14 cities throughout India, nine in the Middle East and other destinations such as Male and Gan Island in the Maldives, and Seychelles. SriLankan also operates one-stop twice-daily services between Sri Lanka and Australia with its codeshare partners Qantas and Malaysia Airlines. Passengers will enjoy the comforts of the airline’s modern Airbus A330 aircraft between Melbourne and Colombo, with flatbeds in Business Class, sophisticated in-flight entertainment and world class service provided by SriLankan’s award winning cabin crew.

SriLankan Airlines launched a new four-times-a-week service to Coimbatore on July 16, which took its online destination count to 41, which is the highest ever in Sri Lanka’s aviation history. The airline recently launched flights to Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam. Also, seasonal flights to Gaya and Varanasi will resume in August, which would bring SriLankan’s count to 126 scheduled flights a week to 14 destinations in India. This would mean that the airline will serve more Indian points than any other international airline. SriLankan completed the recently ended Financial Year 2016/17 with an improved financial performance and a reduction of its Unit Cost. Since the beginning of the new FY 2017/18, SriLankan has recorded a reversal of the declining yields that it had witnessed in the prior year.

SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of Sri Lanka and a member of oneworld alliance, will be establishing its presence in Australia with daily non-stop services to Melbourne commencing October 29, 2017. The non-stop services will also facilitate passengers from the Middle East and South Asia seeking onward connectivity via Colombo to/from Australia. The airline will be operating Airbus 330-200 aircraft on the route. For the convenience of travellers seeking onward connectivity from its Colombo hub, SriLankan currently connects over 10 Indian points with over 100 flights a week, which includes services to/from Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta, Trivandrum, Tiruchirappalli, Cochin, Mumbai and New Delhi. SriLankan will be adding Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore and Hyderabad to its route network in July this year, further expanding its presence in India. SriLankan Airlines’ Chief Executive Officer, Captain Suren Ratwatte, said, “Our presence in Australia cements the long-standing relationship between our two countries. We recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our nations, and the addition of Melbourne signifies our strategy of optimizing the Airline’s network in line with our restructuring. This also means that we have connected another continent to our global route map. On the other hand, given the number of Sri Lankans residing in and around Victoria, we fulfill a long felt need for a direct service. We are proud to welcome all the diverse residents of Victoria who can now enjoy the direct connections when visiting their friends and families throughout our network.” Australia is home to one of the largest Sri Lankan expatriate communities, many of whom reside in and around Melbourne, the capital of Australia’s ‘Garden State’, Victoria. This factor, together with the tremendous potential for business travel and …

SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of Sri Lanka and a member of the oneworld alliance will be adding four more frequencies to its current daily operations to/from New Delhi from July 15, 2017. A total of 11 flights a week will operate to and out of Delhi. The purpose of adding these flights is to provide passengers with added convenience and a wider choice in terms of travel between the two countries and seeking onward connectivity. The morning arrival time in Colombo for the new flight will also give convenient connections to destinations like Maldives, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore and Bangkok. Commenting on the occasion, SriLankan Airlines, Manager Northern & Eastern India, Chinthaka Weerasinghe, stated, “North India is a key market for us and with most of the industrialists and business families spread across Delhi & neighboring states. While we have always received a strong response from this market, Delhi serves as a key business hub for all multinational corporations. These additional flights will cater to growing business, corporate and leisure demand between Sri Lanka and Delhi.”

Continuing its strategic focus on India, SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of Sri Lanka and a member of the oneworld airline alliance, will be adding three southern Indian cities namely, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Visakhapatnam, to its network from July 8, 2017. The introduction of these new routes, along with the scheduled frequency increases in its Delhi and Mumbai services, will see SriLankan operating over 120 flights a week to 14 cities, thus becoming the carrier that serves the highest number of points in India. Commenting on the developments, SriLankan Airlines Chief Commercial Officer, Siva Ramachandran, stated, “India has been a vital part of our strategic expansion where we will continue to explore potential to consolidate our presence. At a time the industry observes consistently developing travel movements around tier two cities as opposed to the traditional hubs, it is timely to offer these connectivity options to our valued passengers. The new routes also reinforces our commitment to strengthen the deep commercial and bilateral ties between India and Sri Lanka.” The new routes will be serviced by Airbus 320/321 aircraft which will feature an array of bespoke services, world-class in-flight entertainment including a combination of practical timings and signature SriLankan Airlines’ hospitality services. These new routes are introduced with the aim of providing passengers with added convenience, seamless travel and easy onward connectivity from Colombo. Currently serving key Indian cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Tiruchirappalli, Trivandrum, Cochin, Madurai, Varanasi and Bodh Gaya, SriLankan will be introducing four additional frequencies to its daily services from Delhi and Mumbai in July this year.

SriLankan Airlines is on an expansion drive in India. Calling India its biggest market, Siva Ramachandran, CCO, SriLankan Airlines, said that they have seen a 15 per cent growth from India in the last one year. “This does not include the trader community which travels more regularly. If we add them, it’d be more than 20 per cent. We are going to increase the frequencies in India. Currently, we are operating 107 frequencies a week. By the middle of this year, we are hoping to make it 130 frequencies a week. We are adding three more destinations into india—Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam and Coimbatore. We are also increasing flights to Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi,” he informed.    

SriLankan Airlines has inducted the first of its latest Airbus aircraft—A320neo. The aircraft arrived on March 6 and will be the first of the A320neo and A321neo family aircraft in its fleet. Ajith Dias, Chairman of SriLankan Airlines, said: “Our airline realigned its strategic focus during the last quarter of 2016 to capitalize on market opportunities in the rapidly growing travel and tourism industry in Asia, which included the launch of services to 11new destinations throughout the Indian Ocean and Middle East regions. The arrival of the A320neo and A321neo aircraft will better align our fleet to this objective, as these aircraft are more suited to our medium-haul operations, while we already possess an excellent fleet of A330 aircraft for our long-haul routes.”

The Sri Lankan carrier, Mihin Lanka will stop its services effective October 30, 2016. This decision has been made by the Government of Sri Lanka, as part of its long term strategy to restructure the local aviation industry and strengthen the national carrier’s offering and efficiency. Chinthaka Weerasinghe, Manager Northern India, SriLankan Airlines, says, “There are four routes that we will be taking over in India itself; Madurai, Kolkata, Varanasi and Bodh Gaya. With these operations we will be having overall 103 flights in a week from 11 destinations in India. This will make us one of the top five international airlines operating into India in terms of frequency as well as seat capacity.”

Sri Lanka is emerging as a high potential incentive destination and corporate venue for employee incentive trips and business meetings, having witnessed an impressive growth of over 15 per cent YOY, with over 233,000 MICE visitors from India in the past six years, according to data from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Thomas Cook (India) recently hosted an exclusive corporate event in collaboration with Sri Lanka Convention Bureau and SriLankan Airlines to harness the demand for MICE travel to Sri Lanka across mid and large Indian corporates and SMEs. TCI’s internal research and consumer analysis reiterates the significant and growing opportunity of India’s corporate segment, with interest for Sri Lanka as a MICE destination having grown by 15-20 per cent YOY over the last three years. The exclusive corporate event in Mumbai was attended by the crème de la crème of the corporate world, Saroja Siresena, The Consul General of Sri Lanka in Mumbai, and Bollywood celebrity Jacqueline Fernandez.