Sri Lankan Airlines introduces double daily flights to Mumbai
The Morning: Sri Lankan Airlines has introduced double daily flights between Colombo and Mumbai, multiplying the convenience for passengers travelling to and from India’s financial and entertainment capital. The new double daily service to Mumbai is expected to not only give a 50% boost to Sri Lankan’s capacity on its Mumbai route, but is also to strengthen the airline’s already vast network in India.
Accordingly, Flights UL142 and UL144 are scheduled to depart daily from Mumbai to Colombo at 3:10 hrs. and 20:45 hrs., respectively. Flights UL141 and UL143 from Colombo to Mumbai are scheduled to depart at 23:45 hrs. and 17:10 hrs., respectively. Passengers travelling out of Mumbai on Sri Lankan Airlines have the advantage of more flight options to Colombo and convenient connections via Colombo to popular destinations in the Far East, Europe and Australia including Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Melbourne and Sydney.
Sri Lankan Airlines Head of Worldwide Sales and Distribution Dimuthu Tennakoon stated: “The Indian market has been incredibly important to Sri Lankan Airlines since the get-go, and with India fast becoming one of the world’s largest outbound travel markets, we are only happy to expand our operations in one of India’s most celebrated cities and make travel between Mumbai and Colombo extra seamless. Our frequency increase comes on the heels of Sri Lanka announcing free visas for Indian visitors and we hope that these positive developments will encourage more travelers from Mumbai to stop by Sri Lanka.”
India is the only country with nine cities featured in Sri Lankan Airlines’ network. This includes Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi, Trivandrum, Chennai, Trichy and Madurai in addition to Mumbai, to which altogether Sri Lankan operates close to 100 flights every week.
Sri Lankan Airlines’ outstanding service in the region was recently recognized at the South Asian Travel Awards (SATA) in Bangalore, India where the airline was crowned the Leading International Airline – South Asia and Leading Airline Class – Business Class.
OSL take:
Tourists from India have been topping Sri Lanka’s tourists lists in the past few years and with the country’s tourism industry back on track, Indian tourists are returning to Sri Lanka once again. With Sri Lanka’s expanding economic activities, there’s also an increase in the number of business travelers, especially Indian business travelers, visiting Sri Lanka. All this increase in travel between Sri Lanka and India has resulted in an increase in air travel between the two countries. There is also an increase in the number of flights operated between the two countries as well as the number of destinations that the flights operate to in India. Sri Lanka and India also enjoy strong bilateral and trade ties that have been further strengthened by an operational free trade agreement (FTA). This FTA is to be further strengthened with proposed ETCA agreement currently under negotiation. Given the expanding business potential in Sri Lanka and the close ties between the two countries, Indian businesses/investors could confidently explore the expanding opportunities in Sri Lanka. Also, other countries interested in doing business with India could look at setting up base in Sri Lanka to engage with India using the preferential treatment enjoyed by Sri Lanka with India.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20231207/Z_5 |