Sri Lankan Airlines is planning to start operations from additional three cities in India, including Ahmedabad. Currently it operates out of nine cities in India. Besides the airline has also launched a new marketing campaign specific to Indian market to attract Indian tourists to Sri Lanka.
The airline currently operates 60-70 flights to and from India.
According to the airline, India is the number one source market for Sri Lanka, along with Russia. In 2019, Indians accounted for nearly 3.9 lakh tourists in 2019.
SriLankan Airlines’ CEO Richard Nuttall confirmed to ANI news that Indian airports were a really helpful during the political turmoil in the country.
For SriLankan Airlines, the business started to pick up in December 2021. But the country ran out of fuel and then had a change in regime which also led to running out of aviation fuel, during those months the company stopped over in India to take fuel stops to buy jet fuel from vendors in Chennai and started to tanker fuel. Due to this, the airline started operating on a full schedule from July 2022.
The company is currently using its own operational cash flows as interest rates don’t allow companies to borrow too much from institutions.
The airline claims to be almost back to 2019 revenues but passenger numbers are 70% of the pre-pandemic level due to certain fleet changes.