Srilankan Airlines Offers 2016

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The best rates and great rebates! Featuring stunning rebates and incomparable amenities, a unique experience lies right in front of you. Just make an easy booking at home conveniently on-line and packing your bag for an memorable journey. Top-notch hospitality, stunning rebates - what can you wait for?

Discount up to 25% on SriLankan Airlines Online Booking

SRILANKAN AIRCRAFTs only! SRILANKAN AIRCRAFTs only! Special offers available for Economy and Business Class round-trip flights from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Kuwait, Dammam, Riyadh and Jeddah to all Sri Lankan on-line cities. Validity start of the trip: 01 October - 30 November 2016 . The General Business and Tariff Regulations remain in force â please refer to the Tariff Regulations on-line at the point of sale as the Tariff Regulations differ according to your ticketing and your location.

Sri Lankan Airlines Ltd retains the right to revoke all or any of the provisions governing the above offers at any moment in its absolute discretion and without giving advance notification. Tariffs quoted in promotional offers are generally basic only and the overall tariff may vary in the collection of tax and surcharges.

Different requirements shall be applicable. Pay attention to the tariff regulations at the moment of your reservation.

While SriLankan Airlines is resuming its long-haul Melbourne operations, it is concentrating mainly on local economic outperformance.

On 29 October 2017 SriLankan Airlines will resume long-haul operations with the start of a day flight to Melbourne in Australia. Columbo-Melbourne will be the second long-haul destination in Sri Lanka (over nine hours) after Colombo-London Heathrow - the airline's only remaining link in Europe after a comprehensive reorganisation in 2016. In the fourth quarter of 2016, the carrier abandoned Frankfurt and Paris and canceled an order for the A350 that was originally planned for Europe extension.

Melebourne is an exceptional case in a new short-haul policy that will not be followed by any new long-haul destination. Last year, Sri Lanka concentrated on developing intra-Asian intra-Asian flights as part of a new strategic effort to improve return on investment and attract prospective investment.

Sri Lanka has been very badly off for nearly a decade and has made more than a billion dollars in loss since its last gain in the financial year ended March 2008. Sri Lanka plans to concentrate its efforts primarily on intra-Asian intra-Asian flights. It currently has 22 scheduled flights (less than four hours), 19 within South Asia and three to South East Asia.

Chennai, Male, Bangkok and Singapore are the biggest short-haul cities in terms of both frequency and seating capacities. There are currently 32 departures per week to Chennai, 28 departures per week to Male and 21 departures per week to Bangkok and Singapore. Ratwatte pointed out that Sri Lanka has performed well with three day trips in the Bangkok and Singapore market, and plans to expand other local destination to three day trips.

Sri Lanka now has four targets serviced with two frequency bands a day - Bangalore, Kochi, Tiruchirappalli and Kuala Lumpur. Ratwatte said that some of Sri Lanka's smaller region itineraries could also be expanded to two a day as well. Sri Lanka currently has 11 departures per week to Delhi and seven departures per week to five short-haul cities - Dhaka, Karachi, Madurai, Mumbai and Trivandrum.

Sri Lanka recently heralded the launch of a second day Colombo-Mumbai service on 29 October 2017 and an upgrade to 13 weekly Colombo-Delhi services on 1 December 2017. The other eight Sri Lankan domestic venues are operated less than once a day. A number of these may be updated every day as the carrier intends to include spectrum in its global networks.

Increased frequency on short-haul flights would enhance interconnectivity and allow Sri Lanka to increase the volume of transits. Sri Lanka is highly dependent on the transport of the 6th Liberty, especially on its trade lanes to India and the Maldives. Some of the airline's efforts to increase overall transport are fuelled by the expected increase in the volume of 6th liberty transport. SriLankan's greatest asset is its presence in India and other Southern Asia regions, which it wants to use as it expands into other emerging economies such as Australia.

Whereas Frankfurt and Paris were reduced last year as part of the restructuring of the long-haul route networks, SriLankan added four targets to its short-haul route networks, resulting in a net addition of two targets (from 38 to 40) to the global route system. The four started routes were in South Asia, three in India (Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam) and one in the Maldives (Gan).

Sri Lanka now has 14 targets in India. A year ago Sri Lanka had only seven targets in India, but the group had 11 when Mihin Lanka, an LCC affiliate amalgamated with Sri Lanka in October 2016, was called in. Sri Lanka currently has around 24,000 one-way one-way flights a week to India. One year ago, in September 2016, the carrier had about 14,000 one-way one-way week tickets to India, and the group had about 16,500 one-way week tickets when Mihin Lanka is involved.

As a result, the Group's India capability grew by almost 50% last year. Today, India has a 34% share of Sri Lanka's total seating capacities and 37% of its total frequency. According to CAPA and OAG figures for the September 18 to 2017 period, the entire short-haul air service represents approximately 64% of the airline's total seating and 69% of its total frequency.

Sri Lanka conducts a mixture of narrow-band and wide-body operations on eight of its 22 short-haul flights (Bangalore, Bangkok, Chennai, Karachi, Kochi, Kuala Lumpur, Male and Trivandrum), while the other 14 are operated entirely on narrow-band and wide-body services. At present, the airline's entire portfolio comprises Airbus and A330 family jets, but several options allow it to switch gauges according to weekday and seasonal demands.

As a group, Sri Lanka's own maintenance programme last year included 13 wide-body and 12 narrow-body jets. SriLankan was, however, able to expand in India and other countries by re-allocating large capacities previously used for Frankfurt and Paris. Last year, the mother company's own portfolio increased from 21 to 25 planes as the narrow body portfolio increased from 8 to 12 planes, mainly due to the launch of A320neo/A321neo planes.

The Mihin Lanka fleet consisted of four planes - a mixture of 737 and Airbus A 320 series. Sri Lanka took over all Mihin Lanka flights and some Mihin Lanka planes on 30 October 2016. The Mihin Lanka Group ran 12 itineraries, including two Sri Lanka-overlapping itineraries and 10 exclusively marketed under the full-service umbrella label.

The Mihin Lanka operated two of these tours seasonally: and Varanasi in India. Sri Lanka now also supplies these seasons. Together, Sri Lanka and Mihin Lanka operated 38 intercontinental services prior to the merger: 30 under full services, 10 under low costs and two overlying.

Sri Lanka currently has 40 overseas ports, with Melbourne to become number 41. The net growth of two destination markets last year was supported by four new South Asia services, compensated by the two European services suspension. In addition to the 22 shorter distance journeys already included in this survey, Sri Lanka currently has 17 medium-haul journeys (four to nine hours) and one long-haul journey (over nine hours).

There are 17 medium-haul lines comprising nine to the Middle East, one to Africa (the Indian Ocean Seychelles), six to North Asia and one to South-East Asia (Jakarta). Columbo-Jakarta is a five-hour trip, while the other three South East Asia Sri Lankan itineraries ( Columbo to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore) all last less than four consecutive flights, making it a short-haul one.

Currently SriLankan operates wide-body jets on 10 of its 17 mid-range destinations - Beijing, Dammam, Doha, Dubai, Jakarta, Jeddah, Kuwait, Riyadh, Shanghai and Tokyo Narita. Airbus will serve Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Kunming, Muscat and the Seychelles with the Airbus Airbus A320 series. Sri Lanka last year built up capacities in the Middle East, North Asia and South East Asia.

Sri Lanka is currently considering reducing capacities on some of its Middle East corridors due to excess capacities in the Sri Lanka-Middle East region. Part of the capacities in the Middle East could be shifted to short-haul lines. Sri Lanka also has the possibility to build upon local capacities over the next six month as it will take over the remainder of three ordered A321neos.

The new Sri Lanka policy will remain focused on India as the carrier intends to expand capacities on already established local itineraries. It is also a priority for India's projected expansion in other global economies as Sri Lanka chooses countries with heavy transport of the 6th liberty to/from India.

Sri Lankan's choice of Melbourne was thus supported by the possibilities offered by the Australian-Indian markets. "In India, we have an unrivalled rail system that enables any transport to the sub-continent to have a smooth link from Melbourne to almost anywhere on the sub-continent, which in my opinion is a great competitive advantage".

Nevertheless, an examination of the timetable shows that only four of Sri Lanka's 14 Indian cities will be accessible from Melbourne via fast links. Sri Lanka's Melbourne-Colombo flying will leave Melbourne at 16:55 and arrive in Columbo at 22:15. The majority of Sri Lanka's departures to India start in the mornings, resulting in nine to eleven hour nights.

Most of the other Sri Lankan India itineraries in Colombo have a stay of six to seven hrs in the returning area. On the way back, Maldives, and a one-stop SriLankan location for departing Australia's recreational travelers, SriLankan has a one-hour stop. Sri Lanka's other non-Indian southern Asia travel targets (Gan in the Maldives, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Karachi and Lahore in Pakistan) demand stays of several hrs in both direction.

The Melbourne from Sri Lanka does not link with London, the only surviving major city in Europe, nor with its Middle East itineraries. The London and Middle East services start in the afternoons or early evenings in Columbo - a few short flying minutes before the Melbourne arrival. Sri Lanka will be able to take advantage of the increasing volume of air travel in the Australian-Sri Lanka region, where it will be the only carrier to offer a non-stop passenger transport services.

By 2016, there were 73,000 Aussie patrons in Sri Lanka and around 30,000 Sri Lankan patrons in Australia. Melbourne Colombo's domestic Melbourne Columbo seat is obviously not big enough to fill the almost 100,000 one-way seat vacancies (including more than 6,000 Lie Low Price Classic seats) that Sri Lanka will be generating with the new daytrip.

It is the primary destination because it is a much larger than Sri Lanka from Australia. More than 250,000 people visit India every year from Australia, and more than 250,000 people visit Australia from India. The problem of long stays on most Melbourne-India couples, however, means that Sri Lanka is at a comparative advantage with other airlines providing one-stop services on the Melbourne-India markets, such as AirAsia, Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airways and Singapore Airlines (SIA).

In addition, Air India offers three non-stop services a week from Melbourne to Delhi. It is only on the Melbourne-Bangalore and Melbourne-Chennai market that Sri Lanka offers a similar duration of transits to that of its closest rivals. SIA and AirAsia will keep the fastest Melbourne schedules on the Maldives. Sri Lankan should be able to keep attracting some Melbourne-Maldives and Melbourne-India services with cheap tariffs and stop-over packets, but the present timetable may be difficult for maintaining a day-to-day ministry.

Since Sri Lanka is expanding its operations regionally, it is expected that there will be extra frequency links on southern Asia with Melbourne and other major Indian or southern Asia trade-offs. At the same time, however, any increase in capacities that Sri Lanka aims to achieve is dangerous as it puts pressure on the already low revenues. Sri Lanka is facing increasing home based rivalry and in most of its 6th liberty market.

Sri Lanka reduced its costs in 2016 and continues to work on further reducing costs. Ratwatte said to CAPA TV that the company is seeking new restructurings "in many areas", to include engineered products. Sri Lanka is still very inefficient and faces many challenging situations. Sri Lankan has been one of the most inefficient airlines since 2008, when the Emirates administration agreement for Sri Lankan ended.

Until 2010, Sri Lanka also held a 44% share in the company. In the last nine financial years, Sri Lanka has incurred a loss of more than $1 billion and a turnover of just over $7 billion. Melbourne's start will make it even more challenging for Sri Lanka to get around the edge soon, as it will take some getting ready, especially given the initially missing connection to the remainder of the grid.

Overall prospects for Sri Lanka remain relatively gloomy.