Something that I just found out – and thought would be worth sharing. This might in fact have taken place a longer time ago, but is not yet known among the aviation circles.
Sri Lanka’s second international airport, presently being constructed at Mattala, Hambantota, has received its formal IATA code. The identifier is HTT, while the airport would be named as ‘Mahinda Rajapakse International Airport’. The Hambantota city code will also be HTT.
This makes the airport another inch closer to launching operations – planned for November 2012. flydubai has already officially announced that it plans to commence services to HTT, once it begins operations.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

A new section has been added to Airline Industry Review with information on airlines and airports operating in the Sri Lankan domestic air travel market. The section is actively being constructed, but already has a wealth of information and aims to serve as a source on often less known aviation information on Sri Lanka’s domestic air travel market. This section can be accessed  at http://airlineindustryreview.com/sri-lanka/domestic-flights .

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Sri Lankan government’s project to create a rail transfer service from Colombo city to the Colombo Bandaranaike Airport, has turned into a loss making venture. Keeping aside the usual suspecting of corruption involved in South Asian dealings, this is a suggestion to make the system work in Sri Lanka.

- If possible, import two to three new economical Diesel Multiple Units (DMU) for use on the service (economical being the highlight since the older Hitachi model presently used for this service can hardly be considered economical). The new DMU should be configured in a semi-luxury configuration. A luxury service would mean that higher fares need be demanded, which would make the project commercially non-viable. A higher density service would not be preffered by the tourists as the new service would probably be their first touchpoint with the country of Sri Lanka. As Sri Lanka does not have any electrified rail tracks, having an economical DMU would be essential to ensure that this train service is made profitable. A good choice would be a DMU similar to the HB-E300 Hybrid custom built to fit the track gauge size used in Sri Lanka – or may be even a choice similar to the Australian Transwa or Bombardier built Turbostars (Class 172 in UK), although Sri Lanka Railways might as well be able to find a suitable alternative from a Chinese or Indian provider too.
-Create booking partnerships with airlines operating into Sri Lanka. The service should be made available for integration on airlines’ websites through a dedicated Booking Engine backbone. A small commission should be made avaialble to the airlines which send bookings for the train service. This would prove to be an attractive source of ancillary income for the airlines and the possibility is that possibly almost all of the foreign airlines operating into Sri Lanka may participate. Once the service develops into a commercially successful venture, the train operator may start charging the airlines a monthly or annual fee to participate in the service.
But until then, it would be a task that should be well managed with a mix of efficient resource utilization bringing lower costs, lower fares and good marketing. While it might not be a project to consider very easy, it is something doable and almost certainly will guarantee success.

The great photo of a Transperth B-Series train used as the featured image on homepage, is owned by DBZ2313

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Making local aviation history, an Airbus A380-800 touched down in Sri Lanka today for the first time. The unexpected first arrival was A6-EDN, an Emirates A380, enroute from Sydney and Auckland. Apparently the A380 needed to refuel and selected Colombo instead of its previously planned Singapore stop – due to shorter total flying time on the way from Sydney to Dubai via Colombo.

Flight details

EK414 AKL-SYD-CMB-DXB

Scheduled departure out of Auckland: 1840 Actual: 1848

Scheduled arrival into Sydney: 2005 Actual: 2022

Scheduled departure out of Sydney: 2145 Actual: 2320

Planned departure out of Singapore: 0545 for a 0900 arrival into Dubai – CANCELLED

Scheduled arrival into Colombo: 0235 Actual: 0433

Scheduled departure out of Colombo: 0540 Actual: 0526

Scheduled arrival into Dubai: 0825 Actual: 0819

The A380 had been delayed due to a bad weather situation at Sydney, which disrupted refueling and had to leave with an insufficient fuel load for reaching Dubai, in order to escape the Sydney airport closure. With this, a stop at Colombo had been pre-planned to refuel. The photos below are taken by an spotter on the field at the time, and are copyrighted to the photographer. The A380 was handled at Colombo by SriLankan Airlines Ground Handling.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

SriLankan Airlines’ Airbus A320-232 aircraft, MSN 2914 (4R-ABH), has had its lease period ended and has now been taken up by TransAsia Airways of Taiwan. SriLankan took delivery of MSN2914 in 2009, on a two year operating lease.

The aircraft last appears to have operated for SriLankan on 15th September 2011. SriLankan will soon take delivery of its second newly ordered A320, 4R-ABN, from Airbus. SriLankan fleet list has been updated to reflect this change. MSN2914 will now become the newest Airbus A320 in TransAsia’s fleet.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Sri Lankan business-focused website LMD has published an interview with SriLankan Airlines’ new CEO Mr. Kapila Chandrasena. He makes some interesting remarks and mentions about the airline’s future expansion while hinting about a new destination in Africa. Worth having a look at.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

SriLankan Airlines has loaded a number of changes to its medium haul network from Winter 2011 season onwards. The following changes have been confirmed by the airline. All changes are with effect from the week of 23 December 2011.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

As posted on The Networker, SriLankan Airlines from 24th December is adding its fourth weekly frequency to Tokyo Narita. The new flight operates out of Colombo on Saturdays and out of Narita on Sundays, on board Airbus A340-300 aircraft. The flight will operate as UL454/5, the nonstop Colombo – Tokyo terminator. The carrier was awarded the rights for the fourth weekly flight early this year.

Schedule:

UL460 CMB 2340 – 1150 NRT 343 37
UL454 CMB 2340 – 1150 NRT 332 5
UL454 CMB 2340 – 1150 NRT 343 6 NEW

UL461 NRT 1310 – 1925 MLE 2025 – 2220 CMB 343 14
UL455 NRT 1320 – 1945 CMB 332 6
UL455 NRT 1320 – 1945 CMB 343 7 NEW

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Kingfisher Airlines, effective 1st October 2011, is launching daily flights to Colombo from Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Tiruchirapally. The flights will operate on board ATR72 aircraft. Kingfisher originally planned these flights to be operated from late 2010, which never materialized.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Since the return of its wet leased An-12 freighters a few years ago, it seemed that SriLankan Airlines had stopped its cargo operations. There was next to none marketing about any freighter flights operated by SriLankan and the SriLankan Cargo website too had not been updated in a good few years. The schedules link in its new cargo website (SriLankan SkyChain) is not working at the present either.
Hence I was surprised to find that SriLankan actually does conduct dedicated freighters operations at present. Click here to view the present SriLankan freighter schedule.
It seems that these flights are operated using aircraft belonging to Expo Aviation (An-12/Il-18) and Lankan Cargo (B.727-200F), both of which are locally based companies. SriLankan and the SriLankan Cargo website too had not been updated in a good few years. The schedules link in its new cargo website (SriLankan SkyChain) is not working at the present either.
Hence I was surprised to find that SriLankan actually does conduct dedicated freighters operations at present. Click here to view the present SriLankan freighter schedule.
It seems that these flights are operated using aircraft belonging to Expo Aviation (An-12/Il-18) and Lankan Cargo (B.727-200F), both of which are locally based companies.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review