Italian Connection:
Sri Lankan Airlines goes direct from Milan to Colombo
Sri Lankan Airlines said it will launch a new twice-weekly direct service from Milan to Colombo on December 16 to attract more Italian tourists into the island.
The flight will also help serve the sizable Sri Lankan community in northern Italy, the state-owned airline said in a statement. Sri Lankan briefly served Milan in 2000/2001.
"Apart from northern Italy, it will also serve travellers in neighbouring regions such as the south of France and southern Switzerland," it said.
The national carrier launched services to Rome last December, which serves the southern and central regions of Italy, and will continue to fly twice-weekly to the Italian capital.
The Milan service will also offer one-stop flights via Colombo to the Maldives, a favourite holiday destination of Italians, six cities in India, and also Far Eastern destinations like Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Beijing.
Major tourism markets, including those in Europe, are expected to relax their travel advisories for Sri Lanka with the end of its ethnic war, the statement said.
In May, government forces defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending 30 years of conflict that had deterred tourists.
The Milan flights, on Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft, will operate on Wednesday and Saturday.
Wednesday’s flight UL565 will operate on the route Colombo-Paris-Milan-Colombo, while Saturday’s flight UL 555 will fly Colombo-Frankfurt-Milan-Colombo.
Sri Lankan Airlines said it is supporting government and industry efforts to enhance awareness of Sri Lanka as a tourist destination through a number of marketing campaigns.
"We are launching this service after considering the requests of the Sri Lankan community in the region, and carefully studying the tourism potential as well," said Nishanta Wickremasinghe, chairman of Sri Lankan.
Sri Lankan is continuing to strengthen its route network by launching services to selected destinations, and strengthening its codeshare network with partner airlines despite the worldwide slowdown in air travel, the airline said.
Just two months ago Sri Lankan expanded its network to Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, Jakarta, and Seoul through an enhanced partnership with Malaysia Airlines.
Last October, Sri Lankan expanded its partnership with Etihad to cover Geneva, Dublin, Munich, Brussels, Manchester, and Amman.
With the addition of Milan, Sri Lankan will expand its route network to 44 destinations in 29 countries across Europe, the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, the Far East, and North America.
(Source: LBO – 14 Sept, 2009)