Sri Lanka Aviation

Many SriLankan flight rescheduling, cancellations next year due to airport closure

SriLankan Airlines is cancelling six flights and rescheduling 10 others to alternate times of the day from January 6 to April 6, 2017 owning to the closure of the Katunayake airport between 8.30 am to 4.30 pm for urgent maintenance work on its runway.
A media release issued by the carrier stated on Friday that cancellations would include: UL308 Colombo-Singapore and UL 309 Singapore-Colombo; UL127 Colombo-Chennai and UL122 Chennai-Colombo; UL133 Colombo-Trichy and UL132 Trichy-Colombo; UL115 Colombo-Male and UL102 Male-Colombo; UL167 Colombo-Cochin and UL166 Cochin-Colombo; and UL173 Colombo-Bangalore and UL174 Bangalore-Colombo.
Ten flights being rescheduled to alternate times of the day are: UL868 Colombo-Beijing; UL866 Colombo-Shanghai; UL402 Colombo-Bangkok and UL403 Bangkok-Colombo; UL318 Colombo-Kuala Lumpur and UL319 Kuala Lumpur-Colombo; UL306 Colombo-Singapore and UL307 Singapore-Colombo; UL161 Colombo-Trivandrum and UL162 Trivandrum –Colombo; UL195 Colombo-New Delhi and UL196 New Delhi-Colombo; UL183 Colombo-Karachi and UL184 Karachi-Colombo; UL503 Colombo-London and UL504 London-Colombo (from January 5, 2016 UL 504 will operate as London-Malé -Colombo) and UL281 Colombo-Jeddah and UL282 Jeddah-Colombo. (SD)

What can you tell us about SriLankan Airlines fleet of aircraft?

We have ten wide-body and ten narrow body aircraft in our fleet. It is likely that Mihin Air will become a part of SriLankan Airlines. We will have a couple of aircraft from Mihin as well. We should have about 22-23 aircraft starting from the next couple of months under SriLankan Airlines, which means that we will be flying some of the Mihin Air routes such as Dhaka, Seychelles and some cities in India.

You mentioned that Mihin Air and SriLankan will merge. How will this work?
Mihin Air was formed five years ago for various reasons other than commercial requirements. It is a good airline, but the problem is, you cannot run an airline with four planes. That is not possible. Most of the budget carriers in the world have 60 - 100 planes. Unless you have that size of a fleet, you can't make it a success. They have developed some markets which are exceptionally good; one of which is Dhaka and some of the Indian cities like Varanasi and Buddhagaya. After the merger SriLankan will fly those routes, no one is going to miss out on that. It will not be budget but we will be sensitive to the customer's requirements and these destinations will be run at a different price point. It is the only sensible thing to do.

At the moment SriLankan is managing Mihin Air as well. Everything is separate and once the two airlines get together it will be more cost effective and efficient. That is the plan where the routes are concerned and we will merge some of the routes in September-October.

The staff, are no doubt concerned about their future and decisions will be made together with the Government on these matters. In the end we will have a well managed national carrier which must operate on their own as the Government cannot continue to subsidise the airlines.

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