Why on earth do they want to add CCJ?

The only international traffic out of CCJ is to the Gulf and there is more than enough capacity to every major point ithere. I hope UL has done enough homework before coming up to this decision.

CMB Waterdrome name?

Is this article correctly named http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelani_...oda_Waterdrome

ojas, I do not think they are bullish on CCJ. The first priority for the new 320s are to cover up the schedule while 343s will go for refurbishment. However only time will tell. I'm sure that UL would be very keen to add more seats to MAA, once the new bilateral is approved.

What bilateral?

India and Sri Lanka have open skies.

@ojas are you sure ? It is my understanding that it is just a name sake open skies. UL is seats limited to all major metros if I'm not mistaken.

Civil Aviation Authority Relaxes Rules For Military Pilots

I'm 100% sure.

I don't know how you are assuming all of this, first you mention bialterals is an issue, then you say it is for "namesake". It is bad upon the reputation of a country if it does not honour a bilateral agreement. I'm confused.

A clear and open example of India's open skies policy is the fact that UL was flying to CCJ pre 2008, when the govt. was protecting that airport from EVERY foreign carrier but had to abide by the aviation pact signed with Sri Lanka which gives unlimited and unrestricted access to airlines of both countries. Sri Lankan airlines enjoyed a monopoly on the CCJ sector and made a lot of money in funneling pax form CCJ to the ME via CMB. When in 2008 the airport was opened to foreign and private carriers, it was naturally a dooms day for UL at CCJ as there was no O-D as such to make such a flight plausible and neither does CCJ has labour traffic to SE Asia that UL could take advantage of.

At one given point in time UL had almost 90+ weekly flights to India, so where do you see the restriction? UL can fly to any international airport in India as many times as they want, they do not have any restrictions what soever. Period.

Interesting Statistics on Sri Lankan Carriers

Sri Lankan Carriers v/s Gulf carriers and Some Interesting Statistics

One of my favourite things, playing with numbers, I thought I'd to it vis-a-vis Sri Lankan carriers against Gulf carriers.

CMB is a hub for transit traffic much before Indian airports become ... but being a hub is there still a one sided agreement with Gulf carriers? Let's find out.

Note: when I say "x" number of seats, please assume it is X number of seats per week each direction, except a couple of places where I have specified otherwise.

[I] Dubai:

Emirates offers 28 weekly (4 daily) flights out of CMB to various destinations like DXB, MLE, SIN and Sri Lankan carriers offer 21 weekly flights out of DXB and Flydubai offers 5 weekly flights out of CMB to DXB. MJ has 7 flights out of DXB to CMB and 8 weekly to and fro services between DXB and KWI. UL has 14 flights from DXB of which 7 go to KWI and 7 to CMB.

* DXB carriers have 33 weekly flights out of CMB with 11, 173 seats on offer.
* DXB carriers have 26 weekly flights between DXB and CMB with 8,695 seats on offer.

Whereas

* Sri Lankan carriers have approximately 25 weekly flights out of CMB with 6,372 seats
* Sri Lankan carriers have 14 weekly flights between DXB and CMB with 3,507 seats

[II] Kuwait:

To Kuwait UL has a daily flight via KWI, MJ has 5 weekly flights of which some are via DXB and KU was 5 weekly A300 services

* Sri Lankan carriers have 12 weekly flights between KWI and CMB with 3,079 seats
* Kuwait Airways has 5 weekly flights between KWI and CMB with 1,160 seats.

[III] Saudi Arabia:

To Saudi Arabia Sri Lankan has 3 weekly flights to DMM, 2 weekly to RUH and 2 weekly to JED all operated with an A343. Saudi Arabian airlines have 4 weekly B744 operations out of CMB. Here is the split.

(i) Jeddah:
Saudi Arabian has 2 weekly flights between JED and CMB which are routes as:
JED - > CMB 1 weekly non stop + 1 weekly via RUH,
CMB -> JED 2 weekly via RUH

* Saudi Arabian offers 868 seats per week between JED and CMB
* Sri Lankan offers 628 seats between JED and CMB

(ii) Riyadh:
Saudi Arabian offers 4 weekly CMB -> RUH and 3 weekly RUH - CMB

* Saudi Arabian offers an average of 1,519 seats between RUH and CMB
* Sri Lankan offers 628 seats between RUH and CMB

(iii)Dammam:
Sri Lankan offers 3 weekly services between DMM and CMB which equals to
942 seats

To summarise SV offers 1,736 seats whereas UL offers 2,198 seats per week between Sri Lanka and Saudi Arabia.

[IV] Abu Dhabi:

To Abu Dhabi, Sri Lankan has daily flights with an A320 whereas Etihad Airways has 4 weekly single class A320 flights to CMB

* Sri Lankan offers daily flights between AUH and CMB with 1,050 seats
* Etihad Airways has 4 weekly flights between AUH and CMB with 648 seats.

[V] Qatar:

To Doha, Sri Lankan has 5 weekly flights (4 A332 + 1 A320) whereas QR has 21 weekly A320/A321 to CMB.

* Sri Lankan has 5 weekly flights between DOH and CMB with 1,298 seats
* Qatar Airways has 21 weekly flights between DOH and CMB with 3,585 seats

[VI] Bahrain:

To Bahrain, Sri Lankan has 3 weekly A320s whereas GF will soon have 8 weekly A320s to CMB.

* Sri Lankan has 3 weekly flights between BAH and CMB with 450 seats
* Gulf Air will soon have 8 weekly flights between BAH and CMB with 1,088 seats


[VII] Oman:

To Oman, Sri Lankan has 2 weekly flights whereas WY has 7 weekly flights to CMB and MLE. The rorations of WY are as follows:

MCT-CMB-MLE-MCT 3 weekly A333
MCT-MLE-CMB-MCT 2 weekly (1 A333 + 1 A332)
MCT-CMB-MCT 2 weekly B738


* Sri Lankan has 2 weekly flights between MCT and CMB with 300 seats.
* Oman Air has daily flights between MCT and CMB with 1,448 seats

[VIII] Sharjah:

To Sharjah only Air Arabia has 12 weekly flights with 1,944 seats on offer

In Conclusion, only to Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia Sri Lankan carriers offer more capacity. The Remaining points the foreign carriers have the edge.

************************************************** ***

Other Miscellaneous Statistics:

1) The highest frequency and seat capacity to any city from CMB is MAA with 57 weekly flights at the moment and would go to 64 weekly flights and 12,014 seats from W11.

2) The Single largest foreign carrier out of CMB in temrs of capacity is Emirates with 10,228 seats per week each direction.

3) The single largest foreign carrier frequency wise out CMB at the moment is EK and 9W with 4 daily flights. However from W11, Jet Airways group (9W + S2) would have 5 daily flights out of CMB.

4) Highest frequency by a foreign carrier between it's home base and CMB is EK and QR with 3 daily flights each

5) The Route that has the highest 3rd party carriers (excluding the origin and destination flag carrier) is CMB - MLE with EK, WY and MU plying with traffic rights between the 2 city pairs; which is closely followed by CMB - SIN with EK and CX in the equation.

6) Sri Lankan's (UL's) single largest market is India with 63 weekly flights and 10,436 seats per week. Taking into account MJ's 5 weekly TRZ - CMB flights the count goes to 11,506 seats per week (Not counting the seasonal flights to GAY and VNS)

In conclusion there maybe few approximation here and there, but the idea was to learn the overall view of the Sri Lankan vis-a-vis the much talked about Gulf carriers.

Regards,

Ojas

Another reason not to fly UL!

This is really pathetic, if true.

Sri Lanka and its civil avaiation industry is accused of many things, but quality of pilots have never been an issue, if anything it was one of the very few beacons of hope.

Now that is also down the drain!

Military pilots may be experienced and I respect that, however they should never ever be put into flying commercial airlines without being duly trained. Thankfully, the Air Force does not have any Airbus aircraft so whomever joining UL or MJ must go through the type rating training.
@ojas absolutely sure that UL is not seat limited to MAA? They have full access to secondary ones I know, but I remember reading somewhere that they were capacity limited to the major metros.

Sri Lankan airlines have UNRESTRICTED access to Indian cities. There was a restriction many years back, but that has been lifted from the Indian side.

Type rating is not enough for someone flying a Y-12 or a C-130 to fly a jet. Not to mention everything else involved such as air law etc.

There was virtual chaos at the main porch entrance for outbound passengers at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) in the evening of Sunday, April 3 as a lone security officer helplessly struggled to control the wave of passenger traffic. "In the absence of a semblance of order, all the passengers, with their luggage to boot, were clamoring to elbow their way into the terminal", a Sri Lankan passenger complained. "There was bedlam as a result".

SriLankan Airlines Catering, the sole caterer at the island's international airport which is planning to go public this year, hopes to expand its catering services to other airlines that touchdown at the Bandaranaike International Airport.

Immigration and Emigration Department has set up an Electronic Travel Authority to simplify the visa process and facilitate short stay visitors.