Colombo, Wednesday 25 March 2009: Facing mounting financial pressure due to steep decline in passenger traffic, Sri Lanka’s national airlines on Wednesday announced slashing its flights to India by about 50 per cent.

The Lankan airliner assured it will restore flights after global slowdown shows signs of ending when its overall passenger traffic shows a rising trend.

“We are facing problems due to decline in passengers, especially in our flights to India and we have decided to reduce our number of flights to India from 100 per week presently to 51 flights,” a Lankan airlines official said.

The official, however, assured the “Sri Lankan” will restore its flights the moment things start looking up for the airlines when it registers an increase in passengers using the Indian destination.

“India is an important destination for the Sri Lankan (airlines) and we will induct additional flights as soon as things start improving on the passenger front.”

Another reason for the reduction in flights of “Sri Lankan” has been the decision to retire its four A-320 aircraft that is used for Indian operations.

“Though we have inducted two new A 320’s for Indian operations in lieu of the four retired planes due to age factor, there is still a deficit in planes for the India destination,” the official said.
(Agency)