SriLankan Airlines has updated its schedules for the Northern Winter season.
Noticeable changes are as follows.
This post will be updated when more details become available.
* As I had reported earlier, Milan service will be resumed.
16 DEC 09 -
UL 565 CMB-CDG-MXP-CMB
CMB 0310 – 1010 CDG 1130 – 1300MXP1430 – 0455+1 CMB 332 3 ( Wed. )
19 DEC 09 -
UL 555 CMB-FRA-MXP-CMB
CMB 1235 – 1900 FRA 2020 – 2140 MXP 2310 – 1325+1 MXP 343 6 ( Sat. )
The service will be launched on 16th Dec and will operate twice weekly till 6th Jan. From 20th Jan onwards service will be reduced to once weekly.
CDG and FCO service will be reduced to twice weekly.
SriLankan will not have local rights on the CDG-MXP and FRA-MXP sectors.
Conclusion : On a personal level, I am really glad that they finally resumed service to MXP. However, the way that they have opted to operate the service is really unsatisfactory and leaves me wondering whether this will be economically viable in the long term. A once weekly flight is not likely to build a new market at all.
The UL565 CDG-MXP flight connects well with South Asian regional flights and could have been built into a good business if they operated the service more frequently.
It would have been far more better if they operated a twice weekly CMB-MXP-CMB nonstop terminator flight using A330-200s or a thrice weekly CMB-FRA-MXP-CMB flight aboard A330-200s.
UPDATE: According to latest timetable update, SriLankan will continue to operate this service twice weekly – one via Paris and the other via Frankfurt.
Like I have always been pushing, they should have built a sizeable presence on the Europe – South Asia/ Australia traffic by operating more frequencies to Europe and resuming services to Australia, which they could do really well thanks to the location of Colombo. However this remains impossible with SriLankan’s present economic situation.
* SIN & KUL will be increased to 10 times weekly with the resumption of UL316 red eye service.
UL 316 CMB-SIN-KUL-CMB
CMB 2340 – 0605+1 SIN 0705+1 – 0759+1 KUL 0900+1 – 1000+1 CMB 343 345 ( We, Th, Fr )
Service begins 25 OCT 09
Conclusion:
This is a upgrade done really well. The flight connects well with flights to Middle East in the inbound sector and will be an interesting flight to business passengers in the outbound sector from CMB. UL316 has historically being SriLankan’s red eye flight to KUL and SIN and was operating daily prior to ceasing following Emirates’ departure. I expect SriLankan will gradually increase this flight to daily, which would be possible if they are able to add one more widebody aircraft.
These information are provided through the GDS updates and were correct at the time of posting. However as always, these flight information are subject to change by the airline in the future.
More info on SriLankan’s Winter flight schedule could be found here .
More insights on SriLankan are available here .
Similar Posts:
- EXCLUSIVE : SriLankan Winter Update
- SriLankan Network Changes Summer and Winter
- SriLankan to resume Rome flights
- SriLankan Airlines Status Update
- SriLankan Airlines Full Winter Schedule & Network
Latest Comments