Sri Lankan Airlines eyes expansion in Pakistan

Sri Lankan Airlines on Friday vowed to expand its presence in the country with promises of frequent flights from Islamabad and Lahore in the near future.

“We aim to extend the services of the airline beyond Karachi and plan to open fully functional offices in Lahore and Islamabad by September this year. Our efforts will be to develop our business to a level that will further increase frequency of the Sri Lankan flights to Pakistan.” - Sri Lankan’s Head of Worldwide Sales Lal Perera -

Banuthev, we have only SriLankan tamil people here (those came long before escaping war), our own workshop has employees.

Any idea on the location of the Mihin GSA in Madurai?

I hope you fly to Madurai from Colombo in the first flight.

Sorry my mistake. I meant to say Travel Agents where you can book your Mihin Lanka flight in Madurai (when the booking is ready). We will update here when Mihin Lanka open it's GSA in Madurai.

With the filed timing, only IXM - CMB sector will get benifit. It can connect Kuwait, Bahrain, Dubai, Male, Doha, Muscut, Sharjah (all three days) and Riyadh (Mon and Wed) within 1 - 2.5 hrs of landing.

But the CMB - IXM timing is weird. All inbound srilankan flights from middle east land early morning in CMB. One has to wait 8 - 10 hrs in CMB to catch CMB - IXM flight. Dubai travellers (Wed and Fri) has to wait 5 hrs.

MJ's Madurai flight is starting from 1st September not 29th October 2012

1st Sep ???? Tell Me, Where Did You Find That?

Mihin Lanka need long term business objectives

Mihin Lanka need long term business objectives

Budget carriers should not be confused with regional airlines that operate short flights offering some reduced fares, because they have different business models.

MJ need to restructure its business model for making it more profitable & better organized for its present needs.

Very low ticket prices (customer)
High utilization rate of fleet of aircraft (growth, routes)
Simple structures (processes)
Lean and productive personnel (resources)

MJ need attract business travelers, who could not fly in First Class, to enjoy a premium service. Focusing on frequent point-to-point flyers, Frequent flyers are mostly business travelers.

The growth perspective follow only when the high utilization of aircrafts, which is based on elements such as the efficiency in ground services, short-haul, frequent and point-to-point routes between mid-sized cities and secondary airports. These the key issues keep planes in the air the most of the time. The utilization rate with high volume is very crucial for MJ and every business issues must follow this.

The process perspective based on simplicity of operations. Just one type of aircraft (A320) keeps costs down related to pilots’ training, spare parts, maintenance, etc.

Create lean organization, flexible and productive personnel:

Flexible contracts & multi-skilled personnel
Create right company spirit
Be selective: Only hire persons fit in profile

Need corporate restructuring, debt restructuring and financial restructuring.

Ensure the company has enough liquidity to operate during implementation of a complete restructuring
Produce accurate working capital forecasts
Provide open and clear lines of communication with creditors
Update detailed business plan and considerations

It began with one simple customer need - "If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline, always"

Madurai airport gears up for international connectivity

MADURAI: With the much-awaited international connectivity to the city round the corner, the Airport Committee of Madurai convened in the airport premises on Saturday to discuss its future course of action. As Mihin Lanka, the domestic airlines of Sri Lanka has filed for its schedule to commence operations from September onwards, the airport committee drew the plan of action on airport expansion and other necessary works to be undertaken in this regard.

Virudhunagar MP, Manick Tagore chaired the meeting in the presence of airport director, K Sangiah Pandian. Tagore said the airport committee discussed airport expansion works and drew strategies to get more flights towards East Asia, West Asia and Gulf countries. "The Madurai airport receiveed 5 lakh customers in a year, even when the airline industry is facing a tough time. This indicates the huge demand in Madurai and we will plan more destinations after bilateral talks with other countries," he said. Connectivity to Colombo is the beginning and SpiceJet will operate flights between Madurai and Colombo. "They are expected to file their schedule soon and we will have two flights to Colombo. Airport authorities in Madurai will get in touch with the district collector and corporation commissioner for the land acquisition process for the airport expansion," the MP said. "We are also working on getting immigration facilities and I have met home minister, P Chidambaram in this regard. Work is on and will be completed very shortly," he added.

SriLankan Airlines would soon fly on the routes of Lahore-Colombo and Islamabad-Colombo in the next two-three months.. has planned to operate two flights a day on the Lahore-Colombo route and one flight on the Islamabad-Colombo route..

Sri Lankan Airlines to expand operations

Saturday, July 07, 2012

KARACHI: The Sri Lankan Airlines announced on Friday to expand its operations in Pakistan, with an addition of two new flight routes between Lahore and Colombo and Islamabad and Colombo in the next two-three months.

“The airline would soon fly on the routes of Lahore-Colombo and Islamabad-Colombo,” said G.T Jeyaseelan, chief marketing officer of Sri Lankan Airlines at a press conference.

An airline official said that the airline was already operating seven flights a day between Karachi and Colombo. “The number of flights was raised to seven from five almost two-three months back.”

He further added that the airline has planned to operate two flights a day on the Lahore-Colombo route and one flight on the Islamabad-Colombo route.

The Sri Lankan Airlines’ global route network spans over 60 destinations in 33 countries.

With a significant growth in its business in Pakistan, the airline also announced the appointment of TCB Aviation as its General Sales Agent (GSA) in the country and inaugurated a new office in Karachi.

“Growing market opportunities in Pakistan resulted in the Sri Lankan Airlines exceeding its own passenger targets by an impressive 13 percent in 2011-12, and cargo targets by an astounding 81 percent,” statement added.

TCB Aviation is a 100 percent subsidiary of the Omni Group of Companies.

Lal Perera, head of worldwide sales of the airline, said that the airline considered Pakistan as an extremely important market.

“We started our operation to Karachi way back in 1980 and look forward to a new era in our operations in Pakistan with the appointment of TCB Aviation as our GSA.”

Here is my fan made poster on me hearing the news of SG got DGCA clearance (or yet to get DGCA clearance whatever).



If you are facing difficulty in viewing the above pic, use this link.

Request to Moderators : If it does not fit the thread here, please move it to appropriate thread.

SriLankan to start daily flights to Beijing & Shanghai from next week

SriLankan Airlines will commence daily direct flights to Beijing & Shanghai from 15 July to accommodate the increasing number of tourists.

With this new flight schedule, the total number of flights operated by SriLankan to China increases to 21 per week.

Answer - See the video

1st Sep cant be correct. MJ operates IXM on mon.wed.fri. 1st Sep is Saturday.

Sri Lanka state airlines get Rs2.38bn handout

Just last week, the Sunday Times carried on its front page the story of Steven Hedges, one of those who handles public relations for the Sri Lanka mission in Washington – as an employee of the mission — has teamed up and formed a company called Sapphire Travels (Pvt) Ltd., to promote travel to Sri Lanka. Basically it meant that someone was doing his private business with Sri Lanka while being an embassy staffer. Speculation was swirling within the Sri Lankan community in Washington and the rest of America that Sapphire Travels was even sniffing at doing deals with Boeing, the aircraft company that SriLankan Airlines was looking at in obtaining new aircraft for its ageing fleet.

SG has also got DGCA clearance from Indian DGCA, anytime they may announce schedule or open bookings So, we need to wait and watch the game.