Sri Lanka Aviation

Aeroflot is going to resume SVO-CMB flights effective 05 Oct 2025.

Two weekly - 05 Oct 2025 to 29 Oct 2025
Three weekly - effect 31 Oct 2025

Operated by B777-300ER

Will MRE return to service to UL? or is it undergoing end of lease checks inside A320 hangar?

When ALM expecting to fly?

Direct flights between CMB-SIN vv are going to be increased in coming months.

*SriLankan Airlines is going to increase CMB-SIN vv flights from 14 weekly to 16 weekly from 27-Oct-2025

*Singapore Airlines is going to increase SIN-CMB vv flights from Daily to 10 weekly from 06-Jan-2026 to 26-Mar-2026. Day time flights are operated A359. Night time flights are operated by B787-10

*Singapore Airlines is going to increase SIN-CMB vv flights from 10 weekly to 14 weekly from 29-Mar-2026. Day time flights are operated B737MAX. Night time flights are operated by B787-10
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Not the GACA, Riyadh airport is extremely busy with slots and some slots were free but now acquired by Saudi airlines.

ALM is scheduled to fly 563 tonight as per FR24. Previously scheduled to 604 then changed to 563.

88gee - a few days ago, it was posted on some pages that Vietnam, Ethiopian, Bhutan Airways, and Akasa Air were coming to Sri Lanka. Is there any information about this yet?

​Why is there no direct flight from JED to CMB, despite it being a busy route? Also, may I know the reasons why Saudia is not operating flights to Sri Lanka?

still no update about the new airlines.....

Good to see ALM back in service after maintenance. According to FR24, ALM operated UL454 on the 16-Jul-2025.
It looks all A330s are active. Any A330 to go under maintenance next?

TRV down to 6 a week. I remember a time when TRV was done twice daily morning and evening. I wonder why.

Akasa fairly certain to come, they have appointed a GSA and are expanding internationally.
Vietnam also likely as there is a good market between LK and VN
Bhutan highly unlikely, very small market in both directions

Its the IndiGo Effect (6E). Look at the amount of damage done. Daily 3X MAA, 2X BLR, 1X HYD, 1XBOM. Just matter of time before BOM becomes 2x Daily and they launch DEL connecting to their long haul, Short haul and Domestic India. Even AI went 2x daily on CMB DEL just to connect to their network.

6E is not just abt point to point CMB-India traffic ppl are connecting to SE Asia, Gulf and other destinations on 6E. Wait till they launch the long haul routes with 60x A350 they have on order.

add to that EK,QR,EY,TG,CX,SQ hunting CMB like a pack of wolves..

UL needs to change its thinking to up its game... looks like even Oneworld alliance has forgotten us as we have not announced new codeshares and or added new routes to benefit the alliance.

Government cannot give a capital injection to acquire new jets, at leased used ones. not 2 pr 3 jet, fleet of jets.

But , at least UL should find a way to acquire the 4 a350s , which is already in the airbus order book.

And try to lease few more A330-900 (hopefully 2 will join soon).

And compete with the other airlines. If we can manage to get an A350, it can schedule for a destination like Toronto as a lot of Srilankan diaspora living in Canada and south Asians too. There are number of tourists visiting SL from Canada and USA according to stats. If the connection flights do very well (very important )from both CMB and YYZ and also from American cities to YUZ, all these people will attract to the UL direct flight and the fares must be reasonable too.

also, UL should resume destinations like Rome, Milan, Perth with good connecting flights from both ends.

Nairobi, Addis Ababa will definitely a good move in terms of both pax , cargo also the transit passengers via CMB (especially to south and east Asia). Again, this flight should connect to other cities in Africa from Nairobi/ ADD to get a high pax load.

6E connection flights are very challenging to UL as they cover all Indian cities , SEA and Middle East region. But UL should resume flights to kolkata and possibly kozhikode , Ahmedabad too.

LHR frequency should increase from 7 to 10/11 flights per week if possible. (used to be 9 during winter and SL peak season time). If not Gatwick would be another option too in addition to the LHR daily flight.

UL should resume Shanghai and Hong Kong once it resumes Beijing service. Possibly another Chinese city like Hangzhou or Xiamen to attract Chinese tourists.

UL should increase the frequency to Seoul Incheon from 2 to 4/5 per week.

No idea that why UL ceased Moscow flight (UL533/534) but it’s worthy to resume, as there’s no other airlines operating to CMB at the moment till Aeroflot resumes.

Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh , and Manila will be a good option for UL in terms of tourism and transit passengers from South Asia, Middle East possibly Africa via CMB. Possibly some cargo too.

At last, anything is possible if we got enough aircraft’s in the fleet to operate all the destinations.

It’s definitely the right time for UL and the SL government to plan the future of UL. If not, we’ll face the same situation as now in 2030s due to shortages of aircraft and continuing operations to all these destinations without any issues.

Just because there is a diaspora it doesn't mean the route will work - I've seen it. Typically they want to come in the school holidays, in winter, leaving the rest of the year empty. Yes connections will help but AC is not oneworld and as soon as you add a connection you lose the advantage over EK, QR, EY etc.

Italy yes there is a market, but again it needs a good mix of premium and economy, business and leisure, year round.

NBO & ADD yes good potential for both pax and cargo as you said.

China yes there is a market but it needs to first attract the tourists before operating. I'm intriigued why UL slashed the China schedue last year?.

MOW was stopped because of the sanctions - lessors, insurance etc came within the scope of sanctions

Hanoi/Ho Chi Minh yes good potential; MNL I doubt. Again yes some market but not enough to fill 2-3 330s a week, and connections from ME/Africa UL will compete with all the GCC carriers and just offering cheaper is not a way to success.

Notsure why UL slashed the China schedule last year. UL had the plan to resume CMB-PEK route from 27-Oct-25 but again UL's CMB-PEK route resumption moved to Summer 2026. Proposed plan of increasing frequency on CMB-ICN route from 2 to 3 weekly in Winter 2025 also moved to Summer 2026. UL will continue to fly 2 weekly to CMB-ICN.route in Winter 2025. I also notice UL is terminating daily CMB-AUH route from 08-Sep-25. Wonder what's going on.