Sri Lanka's budget carrier, Mihin Lanka is looking at new destinations in Asia, an official said. "We are looking at adding regional destinations," the airline's CEO Kapila Chandrasena told the Business Times last week. He noted that in initiating these plans they would consider the market potential and take into account the return on investment.
In this regard, he observed that India and some of the South East Asian destinations were looking promising. Having already increased their flight frequencies to Dhaka and Jakarta, Mr. Chandrasena observed that nothing is profitable at the start.
However, he noted that with increasing frequencies in Jakarta they would be close to breaking even in that market alone. Currently, the airline is either making direct operational losses blamed on the rising fuel costs, which he noted was experienced by most airlines worldwide.
The CEO said they believe that in the next five to 10 years an airline market growth was expected mainly in the Asian region especially India and South East Asia. Mihin Lanka currently has a load factor in the mid 82-85% and flying scheduled flights to Dubai, Sharjah, Dhaka, Jakarta and Trichy; and would carry only seasonal traffic to Bodh Gaya and Varanasi. |
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