Wow! nice pictures! So, what does Sri Lankan bring to OW?

nice pics

Thanks ak892 for sharing your nice pictures from Oneworld ceremony. Do you work for UL Media?

SriLankan brings new destinations to Oneworld. E.g. Trichy & Mattala. It's an advantage for Oneworld, SriLankan serve almost six flights each day to Maldives. I think SriLankan should add more destinations in India, Maldives and to other regional destinations.

I read on the news, SriLankan going to start flights to Melbourne from January 2015.

Haha no. I'm just a university student trying to procrastinate instead of revising for my exams.

I remember reading about this earlier this year:

SriLankan to fly Melbourne next January

SriLankan Airlines hopes to fly to Melbourne from next year. Chairman SriLankan Airlines, Nishantha Wickramasinghe told Daily News Business that these would be direct flights. "We are looking at operating three frequencies per week," he said. An office of the airline was opened in Melbourne last year.

- See more at: http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=business/....apNnnUdo.dpuf


Been a long time coming. Could be like the 'kangaroo route' in the future allowing people from the UK/Europe to change in SL instead of Dubai/Singapore etc.

Good news.I hope we will be having enough arcrafts by Jan 2015 to serve Australia.

I've heard "end of the year", "next year","soon" and "20XX" since 2005. Wouldn't give these reports too much credibility.

Fact:- The Gulf Carriers/other Asian Airlines have already captured the bulk of this market. There is nothing left for UL.

All this would do is further increase the losses at UL. Given the already disastrous financial state of the Airline the very last thing they can afford to do is piss away even more money on an unsustainable route.

Even the useless Clowns running the UL circus understand this.

Hmm.. the next kangaroo route.

Could be, although competing with high quality and 5 star airlines like Emirates, Qatar, Singapore and people who will fly with their national carriers BA and Qantas will be tough. BIA also is not up to the level of Changi and Middle Eastern hubs.

Joining oneworld will certainly help, but I think SriLankan has to meaningfully increase service to 5 star (or even 4 star) from the useless 3 star it is now. Low fares would be a way for UL to get pax, but would be detrimental to the airline, so non price factors like quality of service is definitely the way to go.

Well improving our star level is definitely never going to happen any time soon. Especially with the current management team.

I would love to see the airline floated on the stock exchange a bit like the Sri Lanka Telecom (which the government owns 50.50%) which is making profit.

Might help improve standards especially considering the current service offered by Sri Lankan which has gone done a lot over the years.

I flew to SL this x'mas from Heathrow on Sri Lankan and it was delayed by 3 hours. The same thing happened a week later when my sister got the plane from Heathrow. And even on the way back the plane was delayed by an hour and a bit.

It must be costing them a lot in charges for being late!!

UL - Usualy late

We had always this problem.I mean from the Airlanka time. only under EK management we were able to have grip on this because of their excellent management.but unfortunatly this will never happen again.

Normally a company needs to show a number of years of profits before it can be listed on a stock exchange.

As far as I could remember, Air Lanka delays began when tristars began to age. However with EK came new airbuses at that time which meant superb punctuality. I assume since now those airbuses are ageing too so that maybe the prime reason for delays besides politics, but waiting for their a333 and a359 to see how punctuality improves. Although I may be wrong, the new a320's and ex QR a321 are hardly delayed with UL.


Recently flew UL (3 weeks back) and must say service is far better than what I got last year.

Even skytrax shows improved comments for UL since very late 2013.
Negative reviews about UL still exists but very less in number though compared to last yr, but mainly becoz of lack of punctuality, but staff service is commented positively in most cases.

Hope they continue to improve service rather than be what I experienced last summer.

Indeed. We are never going to be as big as QR, EK and the lot, but what we still can do is improve our product and aim for the five stars. If Hainan Airlines can do it, and they are mostly a domestic carrier, UL certainly can.

SriLankan Airlines is looking at re-starting their operations to Hyderabad and Calicut. [traveldailymedia].

We are not in serious talks with any Indian airline: Bruce Ashby, CEO of Oneworld

After an unsuccessful attempt to add the grounded carrier - Kingfisher Airlines into the Oneworld alliance, the grouping of global airlines is open to having a member from India. Bruce Ashby, Oneworld CEO, spoke to Yuga Chaudhari on the Indian carriers and the importance of the Indian market.

You have recently added Sri lankan Airlines as part of oneworld alliance, while India still remains untapped. Do you think you are missing out a big market like India?

If you look at all our members collectively, we have the largest alliance in India now, even though we do not have any Indian airline as part of our alliance. We are actually very strong in India through Qatar Airways, Srilankan Airlines, etc.
You know, we were interested in India. We got into extended talks with Kingfisher, which did not materialise due to different reasons. We are certainly open to having a member in the area but ever since the Kingfisher episode, we haven't had any serious discussion with anyone for joining Oneworld.

more: http://www.dnaindia.com/money/interv...eworld-1984465