SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of Sri Lanka and a member of the Oneworld alliance, will be establishing its presence in Australia with daily non-stop services to Melbourne from Oct. 29.
Australia is home to one of the largest Sri Lankan expatriate communities, many of whom reside in and around Melbourne, the capital of Australia’s “Garden State,” Victoria. This factor, together with the tremendous potential for business travel and Victoria’s growing student population convinced the airline to launch the non-stop daily services to Melbourne.
The services will also facilitate passengers from the Middle East and South Asia seeking onward connectivity via Colombo to/from Australia.
Capt. Suren Ratwatte, chief executive of SriLankan Airlines, said: “Our presence in Australia cements the long-standing relationship between our two countries. We recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our nations, and the addition of Melbourne signifies our strategy of optimizing the airline’s network in line with our restructuring. This also means that we have connected another continent to our global route map.”
He added: “Given the number of Sri Lankans residing in and around Victoria, we fulfil a long felt need for a direct service. We are proud to welcome all the diverse residents of Victoria who can now enjoy the direct connections when visiting their friends and families throughout our network.”
The airline will be operating Airbus 330-200 aircraft on the route, offering its passengers modern in-flight comforts complemented with its award-winning service.
Siva Ramachandran, chief commercial officer, SriLankan Airlines, said, “Despite the absence of direct connections, we have witnessed a steady increase in passengers traveling between Colombo and Melbourne via various Asian connecting points such as Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
Our direct services will give us a definite advantage as SriLankan is the only carrier that is able to offer connectivity of this nature at this time. We also offer seamless onward connections beyond Colombo to a range of destinations in the Indian subcontinent and Middle East. With the launch of the new services, SriLankan Airlines’ passengers will also have the choice of flying to other Australian cities such as Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide as well as Auckland, New Zealand.”

Source: Arab News