Route Launch: May 2011 Archives

 SriLankan Airlines has long been planning to operate flights into Toronto, Canada. The airline wanted to operate these flights via London, and they recently received fifth freedom approval from the UK authorities for flights between UK and Canada. However, there has been no official indication on this route from the airline so far. The Sri Lankan Minister of Civil Aviation has today commented that SriLankan, which is state owned, would be launching daily flights to Toronto via London Heathrow In October. And for a different reason altogether, now it seems that this comment in fact is true.

a temporary licence to operate, through code sharing, an international air service on a scheduled basis, using large aircraft, between Canada and Sri Lanka.

 This would mean that Air Canada would be operating a code-share flight to Sri Lanka on board another carrier. And this other carrier could only mean SriLankan as no other Sri Lanka based carrier is presently contemplating flying to Canada.

 

The airline will be operating two-class Airbus A320 aircraft on the route, four times a week, from 1st November 2011.

Flight schedule:

EY 621 SEZ 1855 - AUH 2330 Mo, We, Fr, Sa (4h35min)

Seychelles is comprised of 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean, off the east cost of Africa. Emirates already operates twice daily A340 flights to Mahé, while Qatar Airways flies an Airbus A319 daily.

The airline will be starting service to..

Kiev, KBP - from 16th September 2011

Kharkiv, HRK - from 16th September 2011

Donetsk, DOK - from 17th September 2011

All routes will be operating on board Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Service to Kiev operates thrice weekly, while the services to Donetsk and Kharkiv operates twice weekly each.

FZ727 DXB 0900 - 1315 KBP Tu, Fr, Su (5h15min)

FZ728 KBP 1415 - 2010 DXB Tu, Fr, Su (4h55min)

FZ725 DXB 0910 - 1310 HRK Tu, Fr (5h)

FZ726 HRK 1410 - 1940 DXB Tu, Fr (4h30min)

FZ721 DXB 0900 - 1225 DOK We, Sa (4h25min)

FZ722 DOK 1325 - 1835 DXB We, Sa (4h10min)

The airline will face competition only on the Dubai - Kiev route, where Aerosvit Airlines and Ukraine International each operate thrice and twice weekly services respectively, on board Boeing 737 aircraft.

 The new subsidiary will be based in Singapore and will begin operations within an year.

 Aircraft will be initially sourced from the parent company, but they will keep all options open. The routes on which the new carrier will operate is not clear, but will likely operate on lower yielding routes paving way for better yield for SIA.

 The new move will surely give some competition to the home-based Jetstar Asia and neighboring Malaysia's AirAsia X.

 SIA already operates a short-haul affiliate, SilkAir. which operates Airbus A320 family aircraft.

 The airline recently announced the Houston route on its Facebook page. The airline is likely to route the flights via New York JFK, operating as Lagos - New York - Houston - Lagos.

 However, the airline has recently had its Airbus A330-200 5N-EIA repossessed by the lessor ( Amentum Capital ) and has apparently also had one of its Boeing 737-700s repossessed.

 With all of these incidents, it will be interesting to see whether Arik will go ahead with this route - but The Networker wishes them well nevertheless.

 Operations will start on 1st June. Flights to Paris are presently appearing as five weekly ( was announced to be daily ) and Larnaca as twice weekly ( was thrice ). The airline will be basing a Boeing 737-500 aircraft at Bratislava.

OK201 AMS 1020 - 1210 BTS 2467 735

OK202 BTS 1250 - 1520 BCN 26 735

OK203 BCN 1600 - 1825 BTS 26 735

OK204 BTS 0700 - 0855 BRU 135 735

OK205 BRU 0940 - 1130 BTS 135 735

OK206 BTS 1800 - 2005 CDG x26 735

OK207 CDG 2045 - 2245 BTS x26 735

OK208 BTS 1255 - 1440 FCO x26 735

OK209 FCO 1540 - 1720 BTS x26 735

OK210 BTS 2030 - 0035+1 LCA 26 735

OK211 LCA 0330 - 0550+1 BTS 37 735

 The Sao Paulo - Mexico market is presently dominated by AeroMexico. It is believed that the route will be operated out of Sao Paulo ( GRU ), using an Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

 The airline will also be adding the second seasonal daily flight to Orlando ( MCO ) between July 5th and 2nd August. The new flight, JJ9398 will be operating with an Airbus A330-200.

Schedule:

JJ9398 GRU 0100 - 0905 MCO D 330

JJ8086 GRU 1110 - 1915 MCO D 330

JJ9399 MCO 1230 - 2200 GRU D 330

JJ8087 MCO 2110 - 0645+1 GRU D 330

 The airline will have full fifth freedom rights between Dubai and Moscow. The new route is to be operated with the airline's new fleet of factory fresh Airbus A320 aircraft, which will be configured with 20 Business Class seats and 120 Economy Class seats ( the airline's present A320s are configured 12J/138Y ). However it remains to be seen what would be the customer response for staying in an A320 for 10hrs. But it is very likely that the airline is after the DXB-MOW traffic which alone could fill the A320 with UL's lower fares.

 The schedule is as follows

UL531 CMB 0730 - 1030 DXB 1130 - 1640 DME 320 Thu, Sat

UL532 DME 1800 - 2300 DXB 0001+1 - 0600+1 CMB 320 Thu, Sat

( 4R-ABM, the airline's first factory fresh A320 to get the new seating configuration. Photo by XFW-Spotter )

 The competition to the new route is as follows

Emirates - DXB-DME twice daily 345 and 77W

Aeroflot - SVO-CMB twice weekly 763, SVO-DXB 16 weekly 320 and IL9

 The new SriLankan flights ensure optimal connectivity to its Indian sub-continent and South East Asian destinations and the airline has also loaded a new Male flight, UL111/2, from Winter - to join its already 30+ strong weekly Male flights.

 SriLankan is also planning to add at least one more European destination prior to the end of 2011.

Doha - Madinah, Saudi Arabia. Service begins on 14th July and will operate four times a week on board Airbus A320 aircraft.

Doha - Entebbe, Uganda. Service begins on 2nd November and will operate daily on board Airbus A320 aircraft. Schedule below.

QR536 DOH 0740 - 1310 EBB 320 Mo, We, Fr, Su

QR539 EBB 1415 - 1920 DOH 320 Tu, Th, Sa

QR537 EBB 1840 - 2345 DOH 320 Mo, We, Fr, Su

Doha - Baku, Azerbaijan and Doha - Tbilisi, Georgia. Service begins on 30th November and will operate daily on board Airbus A320 aircraft as a tag on flight.

The service operates as Doha - Baku - Tbilisi - Baku - Doha. Qatar Airways does not have fifth freedom rights between Baku and Tbilisi.

QR976 DOH 1300 - 1700 GYD 1800 - 1915 TBS 320 Mo, We, Th, Su

QR975 TBS 1545 - 1700 GYD 1800 - 1945 DOH 320 Tu, Fr, Sa

QR977 TBS 2015 - 2130 GYD 2230 - 0015+1 DOH 320 Mo, We, Th, Su

 The airline also announced frequency increases to the following destinations.

Cairo - from 7 to 9 weekly from 2nd July

Dammam - from 21 to 28 weekly from 1st June

Jeddah - from daily to twice daily from 1st June

Riyadh - from daily to twice daily from 1st June