SriLankan Airlines is the flag carrier of Sri Lanka and a member of oneworld. It currently operates a fleet of 27 aircraft, made-up of seven A320s (of which two are neos), seven A321s (three neos), six A330-200s and seven A330-300s. It’s home base is Colombo’s Bandaranaike Airport, where in 2018 the carrier occupied 50% of seat capacity. According to data obtained from Sri Lanka’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the airline flew just under 1.42 million passengers during Q3 2018, with this down 3.3% versus the 1.46 million that it flew within the same quarter of 2017. Between November 2017 and October 2018, the carrier flew just under six million passengers according to Sri Lanka’s CAA.

Chennai accounts for 10% of passengers

SriLankan Airlines’ leading route from Colombo is Chennai, with the airline having transported over half a million passengers on the route between January and October last year, accounting for 10% of the carrier’s total passengers flown within the 10-month period analysed. The airline currently serves the 647-kilometre route four times daily, using a mixture of its narrow- and wide-body fleet. India is the airline’s largest market, with it serving 13 destinations in India on either a seasonal or year-round basis during the time frame analysed, with six Indian cities placing in the airline’s top 15 destinations for passengers carried. Between January and October, 33% of the airline’s passengers flew on services to/from India.



After India, the airline’s second biggest market is the Middle East, with this region accounting for 24% (1.16 million passengers) of the the carrier’s customers between January and October last year. Presently the airline serves nine destinations in the Middle East from Colombo, with Doha, Dubai, Riyadh and Kuwait City all making it into the airline’s top 15 destinations with regards to passengers carried.

One route which just missed out on a place in the top 15 is the airline’s newest destination – Melbourne – a route that the airline launched on 29 October 2017. Placing 16th in the airline’s top routes relating to passengers carried, the link to Australia transported 129,110 passengers within the first 10 months of last year, while during its first full 12 months of operation (November 2017 – October 2018), the route carried 157,342 passengers. The airline’s other routes to carry over 100,000 passengers within a 12-month time frame (Nov 2017 – Oct 2018), were Jakarta, Guangzhou, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Thiruvananthapuram, Dhaka, Shanghai Pudong, Tokyo Narita, Bahrain and Beijing.



Hong Kong, Visakhapatnam and Kunming cut

While SriLankan Airlines added its last new route in October 2017, it has since cut three routes from Colombo, namely to Hong Kong (ended 27 October 2018), Visakhapatnam (27 October) and Kunming (28 February). The loss of these routes means that in S19, the carrier is poised to offer a network of 38 destinations, with no new routes being planned or announced by the airline for this year.

Male leads connections

Male was the leading destination for SriLankan Airlines’ connecting traffic between July 2017 and June 2018, with it accounting for 9.0% of one-way connecting passengers during this 12-month period, while Chennai was second, responsible for 7.6% of connecting traffic. With these routes being the airline’s top routes for total passenger numbers from Colombo, and having multi-daily frequencies, it is not surprising to see them top the list of connecting destinations as well. What is interesting to note is that, of the airline’s leading connections, all of them, bar Jeddah, are within a distance of 4,500 kilometres of Colombo, which anna.aero uses as the minimum sector length to determine a long-haul service.


Of the airline’s top 15 routes for total passenger numbers, only Male, Chennai, Kochi, Riyadh, Singapore, Tiruchirappalli, Kuwait City, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, Kuala Lumpur, Doha and Dubai were included in the top 15 connecting routes, with Delhi, London Heathrow, Bengaluru and Mumbai not making the connections cut. This suggests that the latter four destinations are more dominant for O&D traffic to/from Colombo then they are for connecting services via SriLankan’s hub.

High demand for more European flights

During the past decade, SriLankan Airlines had a number of routes into Europe, however these we cut as a result of cost cutting measures for the airline as it re-focused its strategy in recent years. However, if it was to return to expansion in the long-haul market, OAG Traffic Analyser data indicates that strong destinations for the airline, regarding O&D traffic from Colombo, would be Paris CDG (70,000 one-way indirect passengers between July 2017 and June 2018), Frankfurt (58,100), Milan Malpensa (45,300), Rome Fiumicino (40,400) and Munich (35,900).

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has not renewed SriLankan Airlines’ registration for 2018-2019 under its Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), prompting several foreign operators to suspend code-sharing with the beleaguered national carrier until it complies with IATA strictures.
SriLankan Airlines was tight-lipped about what companies have suspended code-sharing with it until IOSA registration is restored. But the Oneworld Alliance website offers indication. The SriLankan Airlines website still says it has mutual code-share services with Air Canada, Alitalia, Etihad Airways, Finnair, Japan Airlines, Jetstar Asia Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Myanmar Airways, Oman Air, Qantas, Qatar Airways and Air India. But the Oneworld Alliance website says SriLankan code-shares with just Malaysia Airlines and S7 Airlines, Russia’s largest domestic carrier.
A code-share agreement is a common business arrangement in the aviation industry in which, usually, a flight is operated by one airline while seats are sold for the flight by all cooperating airlines using their own designator and flight number. Oneworld is an airline alliance for the world’s frequent flyers. SriLankan became a full member in 2014, making it the first airline in the Indian subcontinent to join an alliance.
SriLankan typically issues statements when its biennial registration under IOSA is renewed. For instance, the company said in a February 2017 press release that it had “renewed its registration under the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) for the years 2016-2017 in conformity with standards introduced by the International Air Transport Association (IATA)”. There has been no communiqué on the subject since.
Acting SriLankan Airlines CEO Vipula Gunatilleka confirmed that the IOSA registration was yet to be renewed but downplayed the situation. The IOSA audit was done in July 2018, he said, and observations were given. SriLankan has now responded and submitted a report to the audit organisation retained by IATA.
“We have met the requirements,” said Mr Gunatilleka, who took over in September last year. He added that there had only been a delay in meeting some conditions and that the status quo should be restored soon. He said SriLankan had submitted a report to IATA and had informed Oneworld of the development. However, IOSA is yet to renew registration.
The IOSA programme is an internationally accepted evaluation system that assesses the operational management and control systems of an airline. It was first started as a common standard for international code-sharing agreements.
The audit is conducted by an IATA-accredited firm and assesses the airline on eight scopes: organisation and management system; flight operations; operational control and flight dispatch; aircraft engineering and maintenance; cabin operations; ground handling operations; cargo operations; and operational security. It is not immediately known what SriLankan fell short of.
IOSA registration is mandatory for IATA membership. SriLankan Airlines first attained IOSA operator status in 2006. Independent sources said that the national carrier had “not been successful in the IOSA audit in certain areas”. The company is expected to take corrective action within a stated time period or will be deemed non-compliant.
“This has been developing over time,” one source said. “The safety management system is in place but unfortunately some elements of it were not being implemented to the required standards. The intention now should be to admit to the mistakes, accept that the carrier was lacking in certain areas, and take immediate action to rectify them as quickly as possible.”
The SriLankan IOSA audit has not been shared with the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL). The local regulator could now do its own investigation to determine where SriLankan is slipping up on implementation of safety standards.
It is not known whether CAASL will demand more transparency from the national carrier–which did not issue a statement when registration was withheld–where such audits are concerned. “When it comes to safety, there is no room for secrets and silo,” Giovanni Bisignani, a former IATA Director General and CEO, once said.