SriLankan Airlines scores a century in India

SriLankan Airlines has become the first foreign airline to operate one hundred flights per week to India. Sri Lanka's national carrier reached the important milestone when it added another weekly flight to its existing services to Trichy.

Peter Hill, CEO of SriLankan, said, "SriLankan Airlines is extremely proud to be the first foreign carrier in history to fly one hundred times a week to India. We recognised very early the important role that India plays in this part of the world, and we have been steadily increasing the number of flights, and the cities that we serve."

Coimbatore became SriLankan's 11th destination in India on 22nd October 2007. The airline operates two flights a day to Chennai and Mumbai, and daily or more frequent flights to New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Trichy, Trivandrum, Kochi, and Calicut. There are four flights to Coimbatore, and three to Goa.

SriLankan carried 1.1 million passengers to and from India in the 2006/07 financial year, which accounted for 35% of the airline's global traffic. The airline works actively to bring tourists into India, promoting the country's many tourism sites and has formal partnerships with many tourism authorities such as the Kerala Department of Tourism.

Senaka Fernando, Regional Manager Indian Subcontinent & Maldives, said, "SriLankan is making a conscious effort to serve smaller cities in India, where travellers do not have access to international air travel as most other airlines are intent on serving the large cities."

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