SriLankan cancels flights to Mattala airport

17 January 2015 08:03 am

SriLankan Airlines has decided to cancel its flights to and via Mahinda Rajapaksa International Airport, Mattala from February 9, onwards.


On the direction of the State Minister of Aviation Faizer Mustapha, SriLankan Airlines,has re-deployed its capacity and adjusted its scheduled operations to focus on more commercially sustainable services, the SriLankan said in a statement.


“The immediate schedule changes which will see the airline rationalising its scheduled operations to and via MRIA and enhancing capacity to other high demand Middle East destinations,whilereducing capacity to underperforming routes such as Moscow.This translates to an annual bottom line improvement of approximately USD 18 Mn,” it said.


The stamen further said that while the airline has already achieved a significant improvement in its financial performance for the current financial year, it is of the view that these commercially driven initiatives will help the airline to further improve the financial performance in the near term while continuing to deliver affordable travel options to its customers.


On the instructions of the Minister, in the medium term, the airline isalso critically reviewing its entire route network, again with a view to being more commercially and bottom-line focused, it added.