14 June 2017 10:12 am
SriLankan Airlines will further strengthen its position as the largest foreign carrier into India with the launch of services to three more cities – Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Coimbatore – in July 2017, increasing to 14 the number of cities in the vast Indian market.
Accordingly, services to Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Coimbatore commence on July 8, 12 and 16, respectively.
SriLankan currently operates 108 flights per week to Chennai, Trichy, Trivandrum, Mumbai, New Delhi, Gaya, Madurai, Varanasi, Kochi, Bangalore and Kolkata.
SriLankan Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Siva Ramachandran said, “We are leveraging on our vast network in India to offer travellers to and from India increased opportunities to connect to our destinations throughout the Middle East, Far East and Indian Ocean region. The new routes would allow more Indian travellers to enjoy the experience of Sri Lanka’s many tourist attractions.
The island’s tourism industry has witnessed a tremendous rate of growth in recent years, with over two million visitors in 2016, a growth of 14 percent over the previous year. India, the largest tourism market to Sri Lanka, accounted for 356,729 visitors to the island in 2016 and 110,891 in the first four months of 2017. We are also commencing daily non-stop services to Melbourne from October 29 this year, which will provide rapid connectivity between Australia and key Indian cities in our network.” Indian travellers would also be able to enjoy seamless connections to the popular island resort nation of the Maldives, where SriLankan is also the largest airline. It is also the only airline operating to Gan Island in the southern part of the island chain, as well as to the capital Male.
The addition of Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Coimbatore will increase SriLankan’s global route network to 104 cities in 48 countries. As a member of the prestigious oneworld alliance, SriLankan also offers its passengers connectivity to over 1,000 cities in 160 countries that are served by its oneworld
partner airlines.
Coimbatore will be SriLankan’s fourth major destination in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where it already serves Chennai, Madurai and Trichy. Hyderabad is the capital of southern India’s state of Telangana and is a major centre for the country’s technology industry; while Visakhapatnam is a port city and industrial centre in the state of Andhra Pradesh, on the Bay of Bengal.