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| Saturday, 18 September 2004 |
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SriLankan plans more flights to India Colombo, (Lankapuvath) - SriLankan Airlines is set to increase the frequency of its flights to India from the present 66 per week to 77 by mid-November even as private airlines from India - Jet and Sahara - are trying to make their presence felt on the Chennai-Colombo sector. SriLankan Airlines, which completed 25 years of its Indian operations on September 1, intends to add Ahmedabad to the list of Indian cities to which it flies, besides increasing the frequency of its flights to Thiruvananthapuram. At present it operates 15 flights per week to Colombo from Chennai, daily flights from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Tiruchi and four flights a week from Calicut. "We will soon be increasing the frequency of flights from Thiruvananthapuram to Colombo to 12 per week from the present seven and hope to start operations from Ahmedabad by mid-November. J. D. Weimen, Manager, India and Nepal told Lankapuvath. A surge in the outbound travellers from India to Europe through Colombo and improved trade relations between India and Sri Lanka have been major factors for increasing the frequency. "Besides, Sri Lanka continues to be a value-for-money tourist destination both for sight seeing and shopping," he pointed out. Further, Mr. Weiman said, SriLankan Airlines, by this November, will start regular flight services to China from Sri Lanka initially, It intends to operate four flights per week from Colombo to Beijing. With several Indian companies, especially from the South, keen to have operations in China, the airline hopes to attract a sizeable share of this traffic through its connecting SriLankan airlines flights from various Indian cities. In addition, the SriLankan airlines is also eyeing the increasing number of IT professionals hopping on to West-bound flights from India on assignments. In an attempt to attract this segment, it has recently entered into corporate deals with Wipro and Infosys. More than looking at savings in revenues, these companies look forward to value-added service like firm bookings and bulk blocks, excess baggage concessions."We are hoping to sign a few more such deals, especially out of Bangalore," Weiman said. Meanwhile, the entry of the two Indian private carriers, Jet Airways and Sahara, on the Chennai-Colombo sector over the last three months has brought down the fares on the sector by about 20 pc. Both Jet and Sahara operate daily flights from Chennai to Colombo. |
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