Tag Archives: Siva Ramachandran

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.