Prasenjit Chakraborty - Mumbai The Indian market contributes 20% of the total revenue for the SriLankan Airlines said its Head of Worldwide Sales & Distribution Dimuthu Tennakoon, while exclusively speaking to TravelBiz Monitor. The airline has recently introduced double daily flights between Colombo and Mumbai.
“Mumbai has emerged as the second destination after Chennai in terms of number of passengers and frequencies. Last year, despite a few challenges, our Indian operation was successful,” he said. Tennakoon added, “The Indian market has been incredibly important to SriLankan 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.”
Talking about passengers, he said they recorded 80% load factor throughout the year. Currently, the airline operates from 9 cities in India. When asked about their focus, Tennakoon said that their priority is to increase capacity on the existing connections.
To enhance passenger comfort for travellers from India, SriLankan Airlines is considering adjusting the arrival times of select flights to Sri Lanka. “In certain Indian locations, the current arrival times are either midnight or early morning. Our goal is to provide more convenient timings for passengers, and the schedules should be tailored to meet the requirements and preferences of our passengers,” emphasised Tennakoon.
SriLankan Airlines has introduced its SriLankan Direct Connect, a New Distribution Capability (NDC) agents booking portal. Speaking about this, he said that they had first launched it in Sri Lanka in June last year. “After Sri Lanka, we launched it in India as it is a very important market for us. Around 200 plus agents are using it across 9 stations we operate. The next launch will be in the Middle-East market,” said Tennakoon.
According to him, Sri Lanka received 302,000 tourists from India in 2023. “The figure is quite impressive when compared with 2022, and I believe this year we will surpass the 2018 figure (from India) which was 450,000,” said an optimistic Tennakoon.
