Sri Lanka Aviation

Ahem; How easy was Oman Air to resume CMB service and Qatar Airways request for 3rd frequency...Why some airlines who has requested additional frequency to CMB are forced/coerced to HTT.

What happened to Qatar's request to operate to Australia via CMB

If UL cannot make money they should get out of airline business. There is a saying in North America "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen"

There are airline which makes profits...wake up and smell the coffee...by the way if price comes down it is good for customers.

UL is the single biggest impediment to the development of aviation sector in Sri Lanka.

This is the truth even though the spin doctors employed by UL wants you to belive otherwise.

This is EXACTLY the point i was raising.

Qatar/Oman possibly using SL as a "home base" means, more revenue for SL, more aircraft landing in CMB , more passengers, more tourists, SO MUCH MORE POTENTIAL for the nation on so many levels.

Same thing happened with Virgin back in the 90s.

All this rubbish to "protect" the national carrier. Such short sighted stupidity costs SL so much, in so many other fields as well.

Keep an Open Mind!!!


You guys must seriously be drinking some weird cool-aid with a weird business sense....look at the world at large....protectionism of some degree is probably the only thing that even allow countries to even think of keeping their airlines flying...lets look at some recent examples:

1) Virgin Atlantic mentioned here was effectively snubbed out of taking over BMI and the all-important Heathrow slots by a combination of BA and some government intervention to keep the British legacy carrier with the majority of slots and only after intervention by the EU commission did they even think about releasing a couple of slots for Virgin to even think of flying too....

hmm....a British Airline with government backing taking out another British airline.....

2) Qantas...suffering badly because of the number and frequencies of international carriers into Australia are increasingly looking towards the government to prevent further increases in bilateral ties and also lobbying for a review of middle eastern airlines (aka Etihad) buying into airlines like Virgin Australia....

Qantas is effectively asking the government to intervene....and if the very influential pilots union has their way....things will certainly spice-up...

3) Malaysian Airlines....recent share-swap strategies with Air Asia all came to zilch after several government-backed unions threatened and forced Air Asia effectively out....and lets not forget that they effectively blocked Air Asia out of Beijing, Seoul and Sydney (two of the best performing routes and another route with big potential) because they wanted to protect Malaysian Airlines and only allowed Air Asia to operate only when the share-swap was instigated and now the situation might turn again depending on the new government that may be sworn in next year and how much importance they place in MAS....

4) Singapore....the government although providing avenues for airlines to fly-in-and-out still protect their home turf (Singapore, Tiger, Scoot) very effectively.....although there were repeated events to establish Air Asia Singapore....they've always been denied by the government....the only airline allowed thus far was Jetstar and thats because of mergers, with Singaporean-owned entities....

5) Thailand....the government effectively votedd out Tiger Airways because Thai Airways have (NOK Air) and are starting a budget airline of their own to compete with Air Asia....this only once they realized the value that Air Asia bought....

6) Middle Eastern Airlines....if for one minute anyone believe that other than Emirates that all the other airlines are operating without government bailout money....you guys must be kidding....the rate of expansion in states like Qatar and Abu Dhabi is almost unnatural....they are replicating the Emirates business model but with almost no back network like tourism, MICE etc etc....things will start to get interesting when the oil money runs out....


So, thats a few and I'm sure I can find half-a-dozen more examples as well...

As for the reasoning that UL are only allowed to operate on the CMB-UK route is flawed as its bilateral rights....but airlines from the UK simply don't because they can't compete on price...thats the same problem with all the other European legacy carriers, they are fundamentally too expensive and only operate to major transit hubs.....it's a given that Sri Lanka is not there yet and it will remain to be seen whether we'll be as big because the creating of a new asian aviation hub is extremely difficult with the current situation in the aviation market as well as the world economy....

As for UL, at least it is mending its ways.....its not as glamorous as some of its contemporaries and has a fair way to go to get there but during the last couple of years under EK where there was no growth or any change for the better at least currently they are trying to initiate a turnaround....

a lot may be said by everybody, but if the day ever comes that UL stops operating....alot of people in Sri Lanka will effectively shut itself from the world....so yes my advise is to be a bit more pragmatic and take everything with an open mind and take in a more measured perspective...

Virgin would have started an Indian carrier way back then....20million as compared to 1 billion (its not even a comparison - the middle class alone would be a good 5 times bigger than Sri Lanka).....and they already operate their and have been for some time...Virgin coming to Sri Lanka in the 1990s is alot of hogwash if it was that serious it would already have flights coming in and transiting...im sure they'd have already been flying to Maldives by now as well....the Sri Lankan demographic would never fit into the levels that Virgin expects (come see Virgin Australia, which is now competing head-on with Qantas for business class passengers on domestic routes)

Oman Air/Qatar are based within easy flying distance to India and Sri Lanka and they only want to attract a feeder crowd into their other areas...

Oman Air doesnt even fall into the picture, its tiny and just a recent fledgling and they wouldnt have any use establishing a base a couple of hours away from their home base....

Qatar are too close as well and they already fly in around 4 times a day.....if there was so much traffic that they want to establish a home base here...they wouldnt be sending in an A320, believe me....

the simple matter is that none of these airlines would set up a secondary base so close to their home base...current airline economics dont work that way....the only recent example I can think of is Jet Airways who set up a secondary base in Brussels and thats failing miserably....

the only avenue of interest could be for a budget carrier like Air Asia to be set up and that can gain some mileage....but other than that it wouldnt really be viable...

why would Qatar want to even consider operating to Australia via CMB, when they have direct connections to their home base....

the Australian consumer either heads to South East Asia, Europe, South America or North America.....South Asia is not really a growth market....

all middle eastern flights, american airlines, qantas, cathay, singapore, malaysian and virgin and the new wave of chinese flights are only concerned about traffic moving through to Europe or the Americas....that's the high revenue drivers...so the less stops and faster connections means more passengers and higher revenue.....

the budget airlines and ASEAN airlines and qantas (to a certain degree) feed the local Asia-Pacific market...

agreed UL needs to make profits and hopefully utilize better planes and attract business class, which means investment which until recently has been in short supply...so hopefully they'll pull up their socks...

as for the American saying well if that was the case...half the American banks and for that matter airlines wouldn't be in business...they've all felt the heat a fair bit and the cooling fan has been stimulus packages from government and other entities

I am pretty sure it looks like you been have drinking the coolaid...Qatar's request (to operate between CMB and Australia) for SL government has been long before Qatar got landing rights to Australia. Qatar CEO personally visited Sri Lanka for that request.

Don't mix up the banking with airline business. here are the defunct airlines in US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._United_States and here is the list of US airlines that has filed for bankruptcies in the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline..._United_States

Since you brought of the banking crises of 2008, none of the TARP (AKA bailout Funds) are utilized in any US airlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble...Relief_Program. US allowed Lehman Brothers to fail; but could not afford to have a domino effect in the whole banking industry (further run on the banks). TARP fund were never used for any other business except for Banking and Auto industries. This has nothing to do with the airline business.

Main reason of the 2008 sub prime mortgage crises was giving loans to people who cannot afford. like giving loans to UL and Mihin. When you give loans to sub prime category; interest rate for those loans are Prime++...so you could figure out the rest

You remark "hopefully they'll pull up their socks " ; what happens when that hope fails; do you hope again and again...It is like guy goes to casino thinking he can win the jackpot spend all of his money and then starts borrowing. A clever guy knows when to exit.

Mihin Lanka to launch Bahrain - According to Amadeus, Mihin Lanka will be launching new service between Colombo and Bahrain , effective 2nd September 2012. The Service will be five weekly. Presently Mihin Lanka is codesharing on Bahrain route with the parent company "SriLankan". Also SriLankan's Bahrain flight UL215/6 on Wednesday being utilised by the Mihin Lanka's aircraft.

CMB-BAH - 18:30 - 21:35 - MJ411 - A32S - MO.TU.WE.TH.SU.
BAH-CMB - 22:35 - 06:05 - MJ412 - A32S - MO.TU.WE.TH.SU. CMB ARR + 1

Well clearly you referenced the Long lists when I implied airlines. Did anyone forget the $15 billion pumped in by Congress and what that did. Have a read....and thats for airlines even private ones.... Some failed but some grew stronger




And for interest sake the full list and amounts that US banks receive....




And if you could please point me in the direction of when the QATAR CEO made this request as the bilateral agreement between Qatar and Australia started in 2003 and is still under wraps



Well currently UL is not failing and neither is Mihin. If you do want recent examples of failures look at American Airlines, Kingfisher. Halfway to that is when one must exit the model. You can't change an airline overnight. There is not a single one that made a profit overnight and witH what the fuel prices were many airlines are struggling.

At least there is a determined effort, the renewed focus on China by Sri Lankan, the second tier Indian cities, even destinations like Bangladesh are perfect for Mihins model. Those are destinations where Sri Lankan under EK management failed because they were too expensive but Mihin can thrive because they hit the right cost bracket.

There is a need for newer long range aircraft and that's a negative currently, but that also means capital infusions. Where there is a slow dribble coming through so yes there is a definite attempt to pull up their socks with what they have they results are starting to show.

Heard ul gonna terminate BAH services from october. Im not sure abt it but no difference of terminating it because UL 215 operates by MJ from long time. All passengers complain that they have been fooled.

Confirmed. UL's ARS is showing last BAH flight operate on 31 Aug.

But the current aircraft utilization (as per your chart) conflicts with this schedule. Will there be any change in the existing timings?

This is not a bad idea given that most businesses operating in Bahrain are moving out to other GCC centers.

Even EK reduced flights to BAH at some point during last year and I do not think they added that capacity back.

BAH was a good gateway to Eastern Saudi Arabia via the causeway, but since Saudis have begun to open up access, there really is no business case for a strong presence in Bahrain for UL.

Yes, there will be changes in the existing timings.

SriLankan Airlines Extra Flights to London in Feb 2013

SriLankan Airlines between 04FEB13 to 10MAR13 is to increase service on Colombo – London Heathrow, where it’ll operate 12 weekly service instead of daily. The airline is also planning 12 weekly flights from 13DEC12 to 15JAN13 (previously reported on 19JUN12)

Schedule :
UL 505 CMB 0215 – 0845 LHR 332 267
UL 505 CMB 0345 – 1015 LHR 332 1
UL 505 CMB 0550 – 1220 LHR 332 4
UL 503 CMB 1315 – 1945 LHR 332 D

UL 506 LHR 1020 – 0225+ 1CMB 332 267
UL 506 LHR 1205 – 0410+ 1CMB 332 1
UL 506 LHR 1340 – 0545+ 1CMB 332 4
UL 504 LHR 2115 – 1320+ 1CMB 343 x2
UL 504 LHR 2115 – 1320+ 1CMB 332 2

airlineroute.net/2012/07/13/ul-lhr-feb13/