SriLankan Airlines increase flights

SriLankan Airlines is planning to support the country’s rapidly-growing tourism industry with a planned increase in worldwide flights and to acquire two more aircraft this year, a statement said.The national carrier plans additional capacity to Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Rome, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Karachi and many cities in India.The aircraft fleet will be significantly expanded to cater to these operations, and its existing fleet modernised, the statement said.One wide-bodied Airbus A330-200 arrived in July, and two A320s are likely during late 2010.SriLankan’s long term plan for the next five years is being drawn up to support Sri Lanka’s tourism industry in particular and our nation’s economic growth in general, said Mohamed Fazeel, SriLankan’s Head of Worldwide Sales.Our plan envisages almost a doubling of our fleet, and greatly increased capacity to most of our existing destinations.

The island's 30-year ethnic war ended in May 2009 resulting in an economic revival with growth forecast at seven percent this year.Tourist arrivals have also increased sharply, growing by 48.4 percent in the first six months of 2010 to 278,652 tourists from a year ago.This is well on course to far exceed the 501,597 arrivals during the entire year 2009, the statement said.
We are also continuously monitoring the marketing opportunities in a number of cities we currently do not operate to at present and will be constantly evaluating the opportunities to commence direct services to these cities,said Fazeel.

The airline on July 01 launched its new service to Shanghai, China’s largest city.With the launch of the four weekly flights, SriLankan now serves three cities in China the others being Beijing and Hong Kong with a total of 10 services, including seven to mainland China.The flights to Shanghai operate via Bangkok on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.SriLankan’s global route network spans 49 cities in 31 countries, and currently operates nearly 150 flights per week from Colombo.The airline last December launched services to Milan, which serves both the growing number of Italian tourists visiting Sri Lanka, and the Sri Lankan community in northern Italy and neighbouring regions.