Financial Times

SriLankan Airlines flies to China in June
SriLankan Airlines will start flying to China only next June with the delay being attributed to getting a wide-bodied, long-haul aircraft. "Originally, we were to start in November 2003 but we couldn't find an aircraft," a senior airline official said.

"Now, we're getting an A-340, a back-up aircraft that is undergoing maintenance along with a series of other aircraft. We plan to launch flights to Beijing on June 15." The airline intends to operate thrice-weekly flights between Colombo and Beijing via Bangkok.

SriLankan Airlines has been aggressively expanding its route network and frequencies after recovering from the downturn caused by terrorist attacks in 2001. It plans to increase existing services to daily frequencies to as many destinations as possible with the same strategy being adopted on new routes.

It lost half its fleet in the July 2001 Tamil Tiger terrorist attack on the Bandaranaike International Airport and also suffered from the sharp decline in air travel after the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in the US in September 2001.

SriLankan Airlines has been re-building its fleet and acquired its fifth Airbus A320 in August 2004, which increases its fleet to 17. It is also increasing its domestic air taxi operations with more amphibious aircraft. The airline now flies to 42 destinations in 23 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

SriLankan Airlines in September announced a record profit for FY 2003/04, with the airline operations making a profit for the first time. Net profit after tax nearly doubled to Rs 4,555 million in the FY ended March 31 2004 while the group, consisting of the airline and its subsidiary SriLankan Catering Services, made a net profit after tax of Rs 5,635 million, up 76 percent. Total group revenue was up 25 percent to Rs 46,191 million.

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