SriLankan Airlines to resume Mattala - China flights in 2017

SriLankan Airlines is planning to operate one way Mattala to China flights from 6th January 2017 until 25 March 2017. The SriLankan flights from Colombo to Beijing and Colombo to Shanghai are going to be temporarily operated via Mattala Airport. However the return flights from Beijing to Colombo and Shanghai to Colombo will be operating as nonstop.

The above decision has been taken due to closure of Colombo Airport runway for the resurfacing maintanance during the time 8:30am to 16:30pm every day in the period 5th January 2017 to 1st April 2017.

Presently Beijing and Shanghai flights are departing from Colombo at 13:00pm. But due to an upcoming runway maintanance at Colombo, SriLankan's flights can't depart at the normal time 13:00pm. Therefore SriLankan has changed the new departure timings for Beijing and Shanghai for period Jan to April 2017. As per new timing both the Beijing and Shanghai flights will be departing from Colombo at 07:25 and 07:35am and arrive in Mattala around 08:10am and the aircraft is to be parked in Mattala for 3 to 4 hours before its take off to Beijing and Shanghai. It's going to be inconvienient for China bound passengers. It would have been a better move if SriLankan flights depart from Colombo at 08:20am and arrive in Beijing and Shanghai at 17:30pm and the return flight depart from Beijing and Shanghai at 00:20am and arrive in Colombo normal time 05:45am. At least UL would have operated the Beijing and Shanghai via Bangkok instead of park the aircraft at Mattala for 3 to 4 hours.

New Flight Schedule for Bejing and Shanghai in Jan to April 2017.

CMB-HRI - 07:25 - 08:10 - UL1868 - MO.WE.FR.SA
HRI-PEK - 12:15 - 22:15 - UL1868 - MO.FR
HRI-PEK - 13:05 - 23:05 - UL1868 - WE.SA
PEK-CMB - 00:20 - 05:45 - UL869 - TU.TH.SA.SU

CMB-HRI - 07:35 - 08:20 - UL1866 - MO.WE.TH.FR
HRI-PVG - 12:25 - 21:40 - UL1866 - WE.FR
HRI-PVG - 13:15 - 22:30 - UL1866 - MO.TH
PVG-CMB - 00:20 - 05:45 - UL867 - TU.TH.FR.SA

Source : Air Sri Lanka Forum

India signs Open Skies Agreement with Sri Lanka

India has signed agreements with Sri Lanka, Finland, Spain and three other countries whereby airlines from those nations can operate unlimited number of flights to six Indian metro airports.

The pacts allow "unlimited number of flights to six metro airports namely Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai," it said in a release.

Read more at:

4R-MRD is already flying as UL189 to DAC? Has she received the retro livery? Hope they change the nasty MJ seats.

if it is too good to be true then it is definitely too good to be true

Peace Air in US$ 5.5 B bid for SriLankan

• Sri Lanka's Peace Air has made the best bid worth US $5.5 billion to acquire SriLankan Airlines;

• The highlight of the acquisition is that the SriLankan brand name and the livery will remain and there will be no retrenchment of staff, but it will be expanded;

• Under the proposed route expansion programme, there will be five destinations each in Africa, China, Europe and Australia, ten in India and 6 in East Asia. Plans to resume SriLankan Airlines flights to Rome, Zurich and Frankfurt;

• There are also ambitious plans to fly to five Australian destinations – Canberra, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, and another, which will be decided later and also five destinations in Africa;

• One of the key hallmarks of the deal is that Peace Air has also signed an Agreement with Lufthansa Consulting;

• They also stressed that they would be getting ready to cancel the lease agreements of the 21 existing aircraft, for which the national carrier was paying excessively, adding that there were four aircraft which were as old as 17 years. They also decried that the lease for a one-year-old aircraft was the same as the 17-year-old aircraft.

• We will be going for the best bid, whether it be Airbus or Boeing, they added.

• The most attractive part of the deal is that Peace Air has undertaken to bear the debts of both SriLankan, which stands at US$ 953 million and Mihin US$ 69 million. Peace Air has also expressed interest in getting a 70% share, 90% equity stake of Mihin and 100% equity stake in SriLankan Airlines Catering Services Ltd.

Thank you, Speedbird for sharing the news !! I wish it become true !

Wow new destinations - Africa and Australia, Cool!! I hope that they will win it. It's good to have a consulting partner like Lufthansa, which will be helpful to make better decision in the future.

Does this means that Mihin Lanka will return to service?

Looks like if this Peace Air deal pulls through, we'd see the entire existing fleet replaced with a younger fleet of "Similar type" aircraft with new destinations
A new way forward and a possitive sence of direction Sounds good for a airline thats mismanaged and slowly failing!
Lets hope this deal materializes and UL can establish itself as a power house in the region in the long-run.

Regarding Mihin Lanka, I personally feel that of it is to enter back into service its name should be changed mainly since its Brand Image has completely deteriorated even further in the past few years and it should take steps to operate as a proper Budget LCC, something similar to successful South Asian Carriers namely IndiGo and SpiceJet. Maybe re-brand it to "South Asian Airlines"and operate as a sister airline of UL

Yup!! Fingers crossed!!


I personally like for a unique name which has Sri Lankan feeling in it.

More fairy tales!

More Big Talk and Delusional Thinking - imho.

Why anyone thinks this has any credibility is beyond me.

If you look at the history of Peace Air from 1991 you will see that they have the most delusional crap of a business plan. Everyone is getting excited with the 5.5 billion $ figure and refleeting plans for UL but don't realize that these morons couldn't finance even a single aircraft for the original Peace Air. Just take a look at this incredulous article from 1998.



The most delightfully strange press conference - at Boeing - suggests the medicine is working. A Sri Lankan start-up airline, PeaceAir, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to buy a Boeing 747-400 combi.

Peace Air plans to donate 80% of its profits to charity and its people believe in prayer.

Yes! They wanted to donate 80% profit to charity!! So they had these absolute magical business plan where the airline's operational costs will be met by the rest of 20%!! Would anyone let someone like this run a airline!!!!!!

Here are some more delightful business achievement of Peace Air over the course of 25 years.




Read it and judge it for yourselves, this is a scam that has been running for 25 years. I remember reading their grand plans with 747s in 1991 as a kid; probably pigs will fly before these guys can fly an aircraft. I sincerely hope the government gives these idiots what they deserve.. and throw them out.

Shanghai and Beijing both to be served by UL

If they have or able to finance US $ 5.5B...why did not they run their own airline

Exactly - $5.5 Billion is a huge amount of money. You could start a pretty big operation with this kind of money.

@Lukeskywalker - thanks for the links. Just confirms what i already knew.

There don't appear to be any serious candidates to run/take over UL.

The fact that no Airlines are interested says enough about the state of UL imho.

Seriously have the folks at UL been hit on the head with falling coconuts? So passengers are expected to spend 4-5 hours "in transit" at HRI before heading onto China?!
This is utterly ridiculous no matter which way you look at it.
If this airport was say, Changi or Dubai or Schipol, I can expect to fill a good 1-2 hours at the most, but expecting a plane load of 300 Chinese tourists heading home to fill up the terminal at HRI for 4-5 hours is waaay beyond a joke. It will take all over 5 minutes to get totally bored there.
Surely they can no negotiate an earlier arrival slot in China.