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SriLankan Airlines to fly
77 times per week to 10 Indian cities |
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SriLankan
Airlines, already the biggest operator into India, announced
that it is adding a further 11 flights from October 31st 2004,
increasing flights to 77 into this emerging market which was
the world’s second fastest expanding economy last year.
Nine of its ten Indian destinations will then have daily or
more frequent flights, including Madras which has 15 flights
per week, and Trivandrum which has 11.
“Our target is to provide a web of services around India,
which will allow rapid connections to both Indians and foreign
visitors to many parts of the country,” said G.T. Jeyaseelan,
Head of Commercial at SriLankan Airlines. “We embarked
on a strategy last year to provide daily frequencies to as many
of our existing destinations as possible, and we have achieved
that in respect of India. We at SriLankan Airlines realized
very early that India would become a destination of choice for
an increasing number of business travellers and tourists as
it opens up to the outside world. India is also the largest
tourism market into Sri Lanka with traffic increasing 29.5 per
cent to 90,603 in 2003.
The airline mainly uses Airbus A320 aircraft for its Indian
sectors, and recently acquired its fifth A320, with plans to
obtain another twin engine aircraft soon. Calicut became the
airline’s 10th destination in India in July, and SriLankan
has already announced plans to fly to Ahmadabad and several
other cities in the near future.
The largest increase in the number of flights is to Trivandrum,
from seven up to 11, including twice daily on Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday and Sunday. This is followed by Hyderabad and Calicut,
which each increase from four up to seven, and Kochi from six
up to seven. New Delhi, Bombay, Trichy, and Bangalore already
have daily flights.
Flights to the popular Buddhist pilgrimage destination Bodh
Gaya, which presently operate via New Delhi, will become direct
Colombo-Bodh Gaya-Colombo, in order to offer more convenient
connections to pilgrims from the Far East and Southeast Asia.
These flights will be on Wednesday and Sunday.
SriLankan is also increasing flights to destinations in other
regions, and making changes that will offer travellers greater
convenience and connectivity.
The number of flights to both Bahrain and Abu Dhabi will increase
from two up to three from 1st October. Bahrain will be serviced
on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday, and Abu Dhabi on Wednesday,
Thursday and Sunday.
Travelling to the Maldivian capital, Male, from London and Zurich
will become even more convenient on SriLankan from 31st October,
as the airline will operate a Colombo-Male-Zurich-Male-Colombo
flight on Monday, and a Colombo-Male-London-Male-Colombo flight
on Monday and Friday. SriLankan has a total of five flights
per week to Zurich, direct Colombo-Zurich-Colombo on Wednesday,
Friday and Sunday, and Colombo-Zurich-Male-Colombo on Saturday.
SriLankan already has 12 flights per week to London, twice daily
on every day of the week except for Wednesday and Friday when
it is daily. One flight each on Monday and Saturday operate
Colombo-London-Male-Colombo, while the eight other flights operate
direct Colombo-London-Colombo.
SriLankan is scheduled to launch services to China in November,
operating thrice weekly from Colombo to Beijing via Bangkok.
SriLankan Airlines, which has been expanding rapidly over the
last two years, now flies to 42 destinations in 23 countries
across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. In addition, the airline
also flies to 10 domestic destinations with its SriLankan Air
Taxi service, using an amphibious Cessna Caravan floatplane.
SriLankan Airlines has won a string of awards in recent times,
which include Skytrax’s "Best Airline in Central
Asia and the Indian Subcontinent" for the fourth consecutive
year; Skytrax's "World's Friendliest Cabin Crew" award
in 2002; the TTG (Asia) "Best Airline in South Asia"
award; First Runner-Up in the Skytrax Best Cabin Staff"
award for 2003; Avion's "Best Inflight Entertainment"
award in 2003 for a fleet size of 20 or less; and Reise &
Preise magazine's "Best Airline" in the 2003 survey
of Economy class passengers. SriLankan received an operational
excellence award from Airbus Industrie for being the most efficient
operator of Airbus A330 in the small fleet category among all
the world’s airlines operating A330s in 2002 and 2003.
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August 20th, 2004 |
