Sri Lankan airlines is expecting at least a 10% jump in tourists from India, especially from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh with the launch of four times a week service from Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, respectively. Last year about 3.5 lakh tourists from India had visited the country out of a total of two million tourists followed by China, said chief commercial manager Siva Ramachandran on Wednesday. In fact, the airlines has been making a re-entry into the Hyderabad market after a gap of almost nine years as earlier it ran flights between 2003-2008 but was withdrawn due to “commercial reasons”, he said, without elaborating much.
“Our focus is on destination Colombo not only for its beaches but increasingly for visitors interested in touring the Hindu religious sites and we have one of the oldest known Sita temples. Very soon we are going to add more flights,” he affirmed, while addressing a press conference to announce the launch of airlines services from here.
Former Sri Lanka cricket captain and Mumbai Indians coach Mahela Jayawardene, who is the brand ambassador for the airline along with his fellow cricketer Kumara Sangakkara and Bollywood film actress Jacqueline Fernandez, was also present at the launch programme where a cake was cut.
“We have realised the potential of India and even more of TS and AP which are among the fastest growing States in terms of growing passenger and cargo traffic. We are now the second largest airline running 156 flights daily from the country after Emirates,” said Mr. Ramachandran. While the general flight occupancy is 80% or more, the traffic is more from Tamil Nadu like Chennai and Madurai with daily flights.Sri Lankan tourists too have been making forays into India.
Former Sri Lankan Captain and Mumbai Indians (IPL winning team) Coach Mahela Jayawardene politely refused to speak anything about cricket after the press meet. “You are going to ask me about the Indian cricket coach, aren’t you? This programme will lose focus then, I am not going to talk anything about cricket,” he asserted.
Not even about Sri Lankan cricket? “No”. He only volunteered to state that he has given up playing totally, not even the English county cricket. “I am needed at home now,” he smiled.
