Financial Times

SriLankan Airlines launches new strategy on flights
Daily flights to New York, increased frequencies to Singapore and Malaysia with a promise of a multiple choice of flights to travellers during the most preferred times of the day are among a host of new decisions taken by SriLankan Airlines, the country's national carrier.

SriLankan's Chief Executive Officer, Peter Hill unveiling the carrier's radically revamped schedule last week, said the airline would commence the new daily return service from Colombo to New York's JFK Airport on March 27 "opening up a whole new market for SriLankan Airlines, the country and our neighbouring South Asian communities."

The airline is working with its partner Emirates on these codeshare services. SriLankan's Head of Commercial, Barry Brown said they were increasing services to Singapore and Malaysia with the addition of two new frequencies bringing the combined number of weekly services to Singapore to 16 and Kuala Lumpur to 12.

The airline will also operate a total of 33 weekly flights to Frankfurt, Munich and Düsseldorf; 12 weekly flights to Paris and seven frequencies to Zurich. These flights will be operated by both SriLankan Airlines and codeshare partner Emirates, the airline said in a statement.

Hill said the increased frequencies came as part of the "Bounce Back Sri Lanka Programme" launched after the devastation caused to the country's tourism industry from the tsunami.

The carrier is placing equal importance on its Middle East and Sub Continent network and is rolling out a huge capacity increase to provide an unparalleled level of service to these markets. "This summer we are introducing daily flights to Abu Dhabi all on wide bodied A330 aircraft.

Four of these flights will continue to Doha and 3 to Bahrain. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will also be the recipient of increased direct flights from Colombo bringing Dammam to three flights per week and Kuwait to 9 per week," the statement quoted Hill as saying.

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