Sri Lanka’s national air carrier SriLankan Airlines is pursuing a two-pronged strategy of increasing frequency to key cities in India and flying to 3 to 4 additional destinations, including Ahmedabad within the next one year.
“First, the plan is to increase frequency... double daily helps customers. With [enhanced] frequency you can generate more traffic,” CEO Richard Nuttall said, seeking to highlight potential in the backdrop of economic growth of India, rise in spending power as well as number of people who can afford to travel. Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram are nine cities to which SriLankan Airlines operates flights with Chennai alone connected by three flights daily.
“All major cities should be double daily. That should help grow traffic coming to Sri Lanka as also beyond, particularly to Australia, Thailand, China and Japan,” he said during an interaction here on Monday. Hyderabad is among the cities to which frequency increase is under consideration. From existing six flights a week to Hyderabad “we should be trying to get towards double daily... need to be increasing [flights to] Hyderabad,” Mr. Nuttall said.
