Air India to start New Delhi-Colombo flights

Air India is launching new daily service linking capitals New Delhi and Colombo, starting from June 15.

According to Thanuja Lankatilaka, general manager at Indu Sky Aviation, Air India’s GSA in Colombo, an Airbus A321 will be deployed on this route with 170 economy seats and 12 business class seats. Flights depart Colombo at 08.20 while return journeys depart New Delhi at 12.05 daily.

The service is Air India’s second Sri Lankan flight, as it currently flies daily between Colombo and Chennai.

Its a good move I'd say as UL has monopolized the CMB-DEL route
AI may get a greater load of traffic mainly due to its better convenient flight times as UL operates red eye flights for quite a price.
As Per AI their fares as of late have become more economical in comparison to 9W and UL so they'd perform well for sure
Favourable routes for AI could be TRZ-CMB or TRV-CMB as currently only UL operates these routes and it don't look like SG would be expanding either

Paint work takes only two weeks but I can notice the slowdown because Airbus has only around 15 x A330 orders until August 2015, If I am not mistaken. Do you know what's the timescale of the process for final assembly and cabin furnishing for A330? Do you have any latest update on F-WWYO (4R-ALO)? Has the engines fitted for this aircraft?

Hi Banuthev,

I don't know exact timescales of A330 production, but there has been a very noticeable alteration to the production frequency in the last 4-6 months. Some say it is related to Zodiac seats, other that A350s are taking over slots in the production halls and that A330 production is already slowing down with a rate of 6 per year now in 2016. Probably a combination of several things IMO.

With regard to 1650 latest update from TLS from yesterday is

>1650 (F-WWYO) (4R-ALO) Sri Lankan to oph 27th/iph 28th

oph = outside production hall and iph=inside production hall



So a good chance it is off for engines.

Super news.... Look forward to seeing her with engines

Hi guys,
So this might not quite match up with this discussion but since this is my last hope, I thought why not give it a try.

Well, the thing is that I'm a Flight Simulator geek even though I'm still on FS9.
I usually get my add ones from flightsim.com but even by searching every corner of it, I couldn't find any SriLankan Airlines A330 add one..
Then I tried google but that was no use either.
So, if you know a site where I can get the whole package (model+panel+texture) please accompany me with the link. (I tried to get the livery and add it to another package, what they call "fruitstand" or something but it turned out to be just another disappointment.)
Please don't consider this as a spam. I'm deeply in need of a SriLankan A330 and it drives me insane to not have one.
I hope you would contemplate my request.

Thanks!
Cheers from SriLanka,
~ AviatorSN

And as an act of advance gratitude I'll leave you with a proper picture of the J cabin of the mysterious 4R-ALG which was originally taken by me.

More Domestic flights maybe?

Just Pondering on the thought why the Government of SriLanka do not look to boost domestic air travel...
The current providers of Scheduled flights being Just Helitours, FitsAir and Cinnamon however Helitours do not offer daily connections to any domestic route and Cinnamon are just simply overpriced
Maybe Helitours could increase frequencies to Jaffna,Trincomalee and Mattala as well as adding Kandy and Koggala to their schedule? Increase their fleet of MA60's too? or could Mihin Lanka too start providing more domestic connections on their A319 Similar to the CMB-HRI route offered by UL as it would really cut down travel time for holidaymakers local and foreign

Cinnomon seams to be expanding the domestic network lately but i doubt Sri Lanka got sufficient demand for domestic flights Imo. How many flights currently operating to Jaffna, Trimcomalee and Batticaloa from Colombo?

I am wondering why did Thai Air Asia and Tiger Airways cancelled the Colombo service because they were flying with healthy passenger load. Thai Air Asia would have operated to Colombo from DMK when it change from the BKK hub.

Japan & Sri Lanka ink air service agreement

The Governments of Japan and Sri Lanka have agreed to amend the schedule attached to the agreement between the Japanese Government and Sri Lanka for air services.

With this amendment, civil aviation regulations will be liberalized in principle and flight routes can be operated by designated airlines of Japan and Sri Lanka at the specified locations in Japan, Sri Lanka, intermediate points and points beyond.

In 2013, Japan and Sri Lanka also added Narita International Airport, Tokyo to the Open Skies Agreement allowing both countries to operate unlimited service between Narita, Tokyo and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is the 15th country with which Japan has agreed to add Narita to such an accord.

This amendment is expected to open up an opportunity for operating new flights and thereby creating more avenues in strengthening links between Japan and Sri Lanka.

FitsAir Has a daily flight to Jaffna while Helitours offers flights three times a week to Jaffna via. Trincomalee and one flight per week to Baticaloa....Not sure about the Cinnamon Air schedule though.

They did operate from DMK for a few months, but i think they where requested to fly via. HRI to CMB which may have been a reason for the termination of the service.

Before thinking about international operations, AirAsia India should focus on stabilizing domestic operations first. Its almost a year they've been operating in the domestic skies of India, but cancellations and delays should not come as a surprise to the passengers. However, I do believe that they are on course to break even pretty soon, and they've just recently started to operate out of Delhi, so the expansion is happening, albeit slowly.

Furthermore, the 5/20 rule in India is a barrier stopping I5 from expanding internationally (5/20 meaning 5 years of domestic operations and a fleet of 20 aircraft). However, I hope the government does away with that rule really soon, it prevents any sort of decent competition. Before coming to CMB/HRI, I think I5 will focus on giving connections to KUL and beyond (for example, Delhi - Bangalore on I5, Bangalore to Kuala Lumpur on AK, Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne, perhaps).

Agreed - I for one am happy AI are resuming DEL-CMB. The *A membership would help a bit, I guess. Domestic connections from DEL are pretty reasonable, too!
But in terms of service (soft product), I think UL pips AI somewhat.
I hope AI does expand in and around Southern India and starting more flights to Sri Lanka - quite a few Airbus planes have been freed up after many of the international services were upgraded to a Boeing 787, and some new A320s are coming in soon.

And as a (secret :P ) Jet Airways fan, I seriously they add to their double daily BOM-CMB-BOM flights. I was disappointed they stopped CMB-DEL-CMB, it didn't work out very well. I hope AI does better. But I was even more disappointed when they left MAA-CMB-MAA! Would be good if they resume that route with an ATR at least!

I wonder what the Indian aviation new kid has in store - Vistara. I honestly don't know what their international plans are!

So that's it from me :P
Anyone flying CMB-CCU MJ inaugural on the 17th?

Regards
Jish

Sri Lankan Should operate daily flights to NRT.UL have already a stedy load in NRT-MLE sector.