Tag Archives: Melbourne

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.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) and its regional subsidiary SilkAir have signed a codeshare agreement with Air France-KLM, which would come into effect from April 27, 2017. According to an official statement, under the agreement, Singapore Airlines will add its ‘SQ’ designator code to Air France-operated flights beyond Paris to 10 destinations – Aberdeen, Bordeaux, Edinburgh, Lisbon, Lyon, Madrid, Marseille, Newcastle, Nice and Toulouse. On the other hand, Air France will add its ‘AF’ designator code to Singapore Airlines-operated flights beyond Singapore to Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, as well as on SilkAir-operated flights to Kuala Lumpur and Penang in Malaysia, and Phuket in Thailand. Both the airlines would later discuss opportunities to expand the code-share to other airlines within their respective groups. The agreement is intended to provide customers more options and seamless connectivity when travelling between Australia, Southeast Asia and Europe. The airlines will also explore the possibility for Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer and Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue members to earn and redeem miles when travelling on the code-share flight segments

Cathay Pacific Chief Executive Ivan Chu and Carsten Spohr, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of the Lufthansa Group, signed a new co-operation agreement that will see the airline code share on flights operated by Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Airlines to a number of destinations in Continental Europe. Reciprocally, the Lufthansa Group will codeshare on Cathay Pacific services to four of the airline’s most popular destinations in Southwest Pacific. Under the agreement, Cathay Pacific will offer 14 new destinations in Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Norway, Italy, Switzerland and Austria with the “CX” code placed on the following services operated by airlines in the Lufthansa Group. The Lufthansa Group will place its airlines’ codes on services operated by Cathay Pacific between Hong Kong and Auckland as well as between Hong Kong and Cairns, Melbourne and Sydney. Under a single booking, passengers from Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich will be able to check through and seamlessly transfer to their final destination in Auckland or Australia via Hong Kong International Airport. The agreement extends to both airlines’ frequent flyer programmes. Tickets for the new code-share destinations will be available for sale from 5 April 2017 for travel commencing from 26 April 2017.

Melbourne has witnessed 24 per cent increase in Indian visitor arrivals in 2015 over the previous year, according to its recent International Visitors Survey. “India has always been a key market for the state of Victoria and the surge in Indian visitors to Melbourne year-on-year is truly encouraging. Indian travellers are becoming more discerning and see the value in spending on quality travel experiences as the expenditure figures have reached an all-time high – this encourages us to continue to focus on this region,” Celia Ho, Regional Manager – South and South East Asia, Tourism Victoria said in a press statement. Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Victoria. The state of Victoria was rated the 2nd highest state visited by Indian tourists. In 2015, Australia registered 2,19,000 Indian visitor arrivals of which 1,03,600 (47.3%) visited Victoria. The Indian visitor expenditure also increased by 29.8% over the same period. Tourism Victoria has worked closely with Indian tour operators to help build significant interest within the market. Over the years, key campaigns have had a direct impact on the number of outbound visitors to Victoria, said the statement. Owing to the increase in outbound travel to the state from India, the tourism board will continue to invest in key campaigns for the Indian market Tourism authorities across the globe are vying to get the attention of Indians. India’s outbound travel is growing 15-20% every year. According to industry estimates, the number of Indians travelling overseas is set to rise to around 50 million by 2020. (Source: Economic Times)