According to SL Gov, the decision on taking delivery of 4 x A359s from Airbus is all down to the new management which is going to takeover SriLankan Airlines.

Here is the Current Update on SriLankan Airlines's Current Fleet and Orders : www.airsrilanka.org/fleet

Pretty sure the article means to say that the whole airline including the above divisions will possibly be sold to TPG as a group. TPG is a reputed global business so its definitely not a racket.

That said I wouldn't be entirely surprised if TPG walks away after doing their due diligence.

This is why Sri Lanka will never prosper unions holding other industries for ransom for inefficiencies within state enterprises

India is simply cashing in the chit for their operation in defeating MR regime installing the current leaders. It's pay back time for RW and MS.

I think probably I was not clear...for me the issues is not India or any other organization taking over excess assets...for me the issue is CPC union warning unless you do as what we say or otherwise we will stop supplying aviation fuel and supply heavy fuel for CEB. It is about time GOSL break these state owned monopolies. In Singapore (LKY) or any other civilized country this would not happen.

Ever heard of a country called France?

I am totally against a bunch of unionist holding an entire industry hostage. Such industrial action should be quashed and the culprits should be fired without benefits. But this cancer is not specific to SL. It has grown and metastasized in most countries, civilized and otherwise.

SriLankan Airlines revives leisure arm in Thailand

SriLankan Airlines has relaunched its SriLankan Holidays leisure arm in Thailand, with Pete Ratanachetkul, managing director of Billion Aviation, appointed to manage the business.

At a press conference last Thursday, Jayantha Abeysinghe, manager Thailand & Mekong Region of SriLankan Airlines, explained that airline is targeting to promote more offerings to Thai tourists beyond Buddhist tourism, especially in the face of increased competition from regional rivals like Japan and India.

The relaunch is expected to boost SriLankan Airlines passenger volume by 10-20 per cent in its first year.

SriLankan Holidays was tested in the Thai market in 2002. Though it met success, the project was suspended due to changes in the company.

Now, seeing the potential of Thailand as a key market to promote Sri Lanka’s tourism with the purchase of package tours soaring, SriLankan Holidays is bundling flight tickets, accommodation and tours to attract more Thais.

“Nearly 10,000 Thai tourists travel to Sri Lanka and the number increases every year. The main route from Sri Lanka to the Maldives for Thai tourists is showing continued growth,” said Pete.

SriLankan Airlines also plans to step up its frequency on the Bangkok-Colombo route from twice to thrice-daily starting July 15, 2017.

SriLankan Holidays targets six main routes – the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Seychelles, India, the Middle East and London.

SriLankan Airlines aims for further gains in the Middle East market

SriLankan Airlines has now enhanced its services to the region, with daily flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Riyadh, Muscat, Bahrain & Kuwait, it said. The airline is also looking at increasing connectivity to other parts of the Arabian Gulf depending on demand.

"The Middle East continues to be one of our most important markets and being present at the ATM allows us to network and interact with the majority of tour operators, travel agents and other stakeholders and present them with our latest offerings," said Desiree Premachandra, the country manager of SriLankan Airlines in the UAE.

The airline, which operates from its hub at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport, will also look to further leverage its membership of the oneworld alliance and work with other partners to increase traffic across its network, it said.

"We are an airline with a unique set of advantages, being located in … Sri Lanka and having strong networks and traditional ties to India, the Middle East and East Asia, which we are looking to capitalise on to grow our presence further as a leading player in this sector," Ms Premachandra said.

Yes I have heard about Fr. But last time I checked France did not have 200+ state owned enterprises with majority of them monopolies or suspended employees protesting on top of the water towers

Dont get me wrong...unions are part of the democratic process. But in Sri Lanka they exceed their mandate of employment negotiations to management policies/decision making

SriLankan to expand India network

Encouraged by the growth in India, SriLankan Airlines has decided to increase its footprint in India market. “We have seen substantial growth in traffic from India to Sri Lanka in last one year and vice versa. As a result, we are going to increase frequency.

We currently operate 107 frequencies in a week and we will be increasing that to 130 by middle of this year. We are adding three destinations; Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Coimbatore by July this year.

Moreover, we are also increasing frequencies to Mumbai and Delhi and considering increasing frequency to Kolkata as well,” Siva Ramachandran, Chief Commercial Officer, SriLankan Airlines, said in New Delhi on the sidelines of a function organised by the national carrier of Sri Lanka to honour trade partners in India. Elaborating further, he said that the carrier currently has seven frequencies from Mumbai and Delhi which will eventually be increased to 14.

“There is going to be huge growth in the India market. Our overall load factor on India routes is close to 80 per cent. While some destinations are witnessing 90 per cent load factor, it is not less than 70 per cent on any routes,” he informed.

To support this expansion, Sri Lankan is also taking delivery of new aircraft. Talking about the fleet acquisition he said that the carrier has taken delivery of the first A320 neo early March and the next one is arriving at the end of the March. “We also have two more A321 neos slated for delivery in July and that’s when we start our expansion programme. We are expected to take delivery of two more aircraft by the end of this year.

What an incredibly misleading article! CCO needs to be fired for telling these outrageous lies imho.

They ordered these aircraft years ago - no way to to cancel the orders so they have to take them.

Now they are increasing flights because they have to! They are frantically trying to offset the lease costs of all these aircraft.

More losses for the people of Sri Lanka.

I suspect these aircraft are all leased above market rates making it impossible to make money operating them.

I think UL is expanding the flights and network to utilize the fleet.

Its a good news for Aviation fans point of view but bad news for tax payers as UL is making losses for the aircraft leased on high rates.

Here are the flights expansions planned by UL for 2017 : -

- Daily nonstop flights to Guangzhou from July;

- 5 weekly nonstop flights to Hong Kong from July;

- Daily A330-300 operation for Dubai service. Replacing A320, A321 & A332 services on Dubai route;

- Four weekly nonstop flights to Melbourne from December 2017;

- 3 Daily terminator flights to Bangkok. Terminator flights as CMB-BKK-CMB;

- Increasing frequency of flights to Delhi, Mumbai, Dubai, Kolkata and other Gulf cities;

- 4 weekly new nonstop flights to Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Coimbatore. HYD and CZM are resumption;

- Resumption of Frankfurt flights planned;

- 5 weekly nonstop flights Gan Island;

Superb. So no more Bangkok stopover for Crew? Is it only turn around flights?

Today our old lady 4R-MRC Went to Moscow

Her New registration is VP-BHN

Easy jet is her new owner

Route: Colombo- Tehran- Moscow

Its actually Nordwind Airlines, not Easyjet