Last month, the director of the Paris office of the national carrier of Sri Lanka Danny Schepers explained to Air-Journal in Europe, where it serves Paris, therefore, London, Frankfurt and Rome, "n ur current policy is to stabilize these routes because we started to renew our fleet in 2014, renewal will continue until 2021 with the A330-300 and A350-900. " He then added a fifth weekly flight between Paris and Colombo-Bandaranaike airport is possible to winter program 2016-2017.

Minister of Development of the State Enterprise Kabir Hashim: Most long-haul SriLankan lines are unprofitable, "in part because of old aircraft," but also because of competition from European and Persian Gulf companies and maintaining them is challenged. In contrast, the majority of lines to India or Asia would be beneficial; Red-to-Black restructuring plan should endorse a growing focus on growing markets such as India or China precisely at the expense of Europe, therefore also of Australia. London is the only airport not threatened the old continent.

This change in the company of the Oneworld alliance should have consequences for the fleet, and it should concern Airbus A350-900 expected. For the Minister, the four units purchased in person at Airbus (firm order confirmed in July 2013) weigh too heavily on the finances of SriLankan Airlines, which has just granted a loan of $ 500 million by the state; and "do not need". The CEO Suren Ratwatte said the same thing three weeks ago in an interview with The Nation, "what we need are easily refillable single-aisle". The case of three A350-900s to be leased from ILFC (two expected this summer) is not mentioned any more than the existence of discussions to modify the order or the date on which decisions will be taken.

source : http://www.airfinancejournal.com/

Good news about UL's European Flights.

SriLankan will say good bye to the A340 with a water gun salute upon the arrival of this aircraft from Chennai at the Katunayake Airport.

Very sad! It's 4R-ADF which will be operating the last revenue flight for UL as UL121/2 on the 7-Jan-2016. Looking forward to see her last flight pictures. I already thought UL might give farewell to "City of Meghamruhunupura" (4R-ADF). Hi Rahal, Is 4R-ADF going to be used by the another airline after it left Sri Lanka. When does this bird going to be starting the end-of-lease checks.

4R-ADF's replacement aircraft is 4R-ALR which has launched it's first revenue flight for UL as UL217/8 (Doha route) on the 6-Jan-2016. Any chance UL is giving the name to 4R-ALR as "City of Meghamruhunupura"?

Now UL has got ALL twin-engine aircraft fleet as below

A320 - Six
A321 - Two
A332 - Six
A333 - Seven
Total - Twenty one
Three x A350-941s to replace three A332s in Mid-2016.

Hello ...

It will not be scrapped... As far as I know, it belongs to the same company of ADE and they will most probably take it to Europe for further few years of flying before the airframe expiry. I'll update once the least return check started.

Guys when will 4R-ADE return to leased company or Next Customer, from Sri Lanka?

Really an end of an era for UL. The spotters around CMB will still see KU and QR 340s for a while.

Airlineroute.net reporting Air China PEK - CMB service cancelled for summer 2016. Is it only for summer?

Does KU started operating A340 to Colombo? As far as know KU is operating 5 weekly flight onboard A300 and new A332 and QR is the only operator who serve A340 to Cmb. KU also replacing A340 with new A332 I think.

Yes, KU is operating 340s to CMB. No idea how long though.

Air China currently operating 3 weekly on PEK-CMB and 4 weekly on CTU-CMB. Btw It could be two reasons for missing Air China flights on PEK-CMB for S16.

1. Flight schedule not yet loaded. Most of the time the Chinese air carriers load the flight schedules around three weeks before the season starts. I hope you remember MU launched KMG-CMB route without any publicity & sched was loaded in GDS & AIS after two weeks of the launch.

2. Air China may have cancelled the CMB flights since UL is planning to start daily flights to PEK in mid 2016.

KU361 is operated by an A343

The national carrier said in a statement it has inducted a brand new fleet of seven A330-300 aircraft which offer the latest comforts and technology such as mood lighting, on-board Wifi connectivity, and a sophisticated inflight entertainment system.

The A340s were introduced to replace SriLankan’s aging fleet of Lockheed L1011 Tristars, at a time when twin-engine aircraft did not quite have the range to fly non-stop from Colombo to SriLankan’s farthest destinations such as London and Tokyo.

The A340 had a range of over 13,000 kilometres and could carry nearly 300 passengers. The other A340s were retired over the last 10 months.

“However, as engine technology improved over the years, the twin-engine A330s began to operate on these routes, replacing the A340s which have a higher fuel consumption due to having four engines versus two,” the statement said.