Yeah i too agree. However they should seriously consider expansion into South India.
I feel that they should take over one of the daily slots of SriLankans CMB-MAA-CMB route as it would be indeed highly profitable and compete with SpiceJet pretty much the same way they compete on the CMB-IXM-CMB route.
The current choice is 3 airlines serving the CMB-MAA-CMB route which is dominated by UL as they offer 3 flights a day where price wise its headed by SG due to their low cost model also including AI as another major player which uses their A321 6 times a week
In the past the route also included Kingfisher, Jet Airways, JetLite and Air India Express and it was so competitive (3 to 5 years ago) that return fares where low as 9900/=
Currently fares range from 21000/= (SpiceJet) to nearly 36000/= (on UL) this September
Therefore an addition of a new entrant would intensify competition and result in lower fares for us stakeholders

only problem is that they dont have enough aircraft!

Booze trick at Mattala
A prominent businessman taking a SriLankan Airlines flight from Bangkok to Katunayake via Mattala saw some passengers arming themselves with two boarding passes. Not knowing why this was, he did not however request the same facility at the check-in counters.
When the aircraft landed in Mattala for its usual transit, he saw these passengers disembark. He was told he could not leave the plane since he did not have a boarding pass for his onward journey to Katunayake. A short while later, he saw the same passengers return to their seats with their arms laden with duty free bags.
Curious, he asked them why they had gone shopping at the airport. He was told that booze, in particular, was cheaper at the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport than at the Bandaranaike International Airport! Also, you can buy duty free items twice now when coming to Katunayake via Mattala.
He immediately resolved to do the same on his next trip on the BKK-HRI-BIA sector; if duty free alcohol isn’t an incentive to use that airport, what is?
There is another reason for enticing people to disembark at MRIA. The facility’s performance is still lacklustre, to put it mildly. Having passengers go in and out of the airport will clearly count as traffic and be reflected in performance figures for 2014. By Gad Sir, ‘Mathata Thitha’, what!

Has MJ confirmed that they are definitely ordering Airbus aircraft instead of Boeing? Last time I read Flightglobal, MJ was merely negotiating with the lessor to do so.

And MJ for a long time hasn't been competing with UL on most of its routes. They've however been a bit slow to expand.

i think for best option for MJ is Airbus A320 family coz we hv well trained crew for airbus. if ty going for boeing it ll make cost for crew training and new equipment

Nishantha Ranatunga joined MJ in March 2014 and he cancelled the flights to Delhi and Dubai from Summer 2014 when they introduced the business class cabin on their three aircraft. They’ve decided to codeshare with SriLankan Airlines and they're now interested in flying to destinations which are not being served by SriLankan Airlines. MJ to increase Medan flights from two to three weekly in Winter 2014.

I hope you know SriLankan reduced the number of flights to MAA from 28 to 21 weekly effective Winter 2013. Due to the protest in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lankans don't fly there like before.

Hey all Just got some news saying that some captains have gone to Toulouse to test 4R-ALL !! They have been doing many test flights up to now and they have given a GREEN ! So the aircraft is now owned by Sri Lankan, but it's still not registered as 4R-ALL... It will be arriving on the 31st of October .. Captain Janaka will be piloting the aircraft from Toulouse as I said earlier and there will be a ceremony for the First A330-343E for Sri Lankan Airlines..

I have some of the information on the interior as well

Cabin Lighting: https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...38374a13c437ee

Seats and configurations etc..: https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...fd85f08f27c12a

(Please do not post these images anywhere on the internet.. )

Good news brand new aircraft joining the fleet. Anychance Srilankan skytrax rating will be going up from 3 star to 4 star?

Great Update Haleef! Really appreciate that! F-WWYX (4R-ALL) flew another training flight yesterday aswell. Looking forward to see the cabin pictures!! It’s a sensible move they are going to utilise the first A333 on the profitable routes which are Bangkok-Guangzhou, Tokyo and Maldives. I can see SriLankan’s target market is now Maldives, Far East and Orient Countries. Do you know who is going to pilot the 4R-ALL on it's first revenue flight to Tokyo?

True. If you read the Skytrax passenger reviews about SriLankan, it will tell you most of the passenger complaints about the out-dated aircraft, poor IFE, poor customer service, poor puntuality etc .. With the brand new A333s, SriLankan will make the passenger happy by providing them the good IFE and better interiors. So SriLankan needs to consider about improving customer service and on-time flight performance. When i flew on UL504 last september 2013 i really enjoyed the cabin service and IFE performance but SriLankan's ground staff at LHR provides poor customer service. Ground staff for SriLankan at LHR provide by Alitalia. I complained about the poor customer service to SriLankan most of the times but SriLankan seemed to not taking any action.

SriLankan postpones Kunming launch until 1st Jan 2015. The service to be operated 3 weekly instead of 4 weekly.

4R-MRE back in the sky again: http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/4r-mre

But no recent flights for -ALC, -ALD and -ADE

4r-all

Thanks for clarifying this Banu. I noticed you said in the above post that they were definitely getting two more A320s. I thought they were only in negotiations to replace their 737 orders with A320s? Could you clarify if this is the case?

Hopefully MJ with its new management will expand a lot faster than before and expand market share. They also need to remove complimentary food and baggage from their base tickets as well.