SriLankan Cargo sets new record

SriLankan Cargo, the freight handling arm of the national carrier said yesterday it has set a new record for the amount of tonnage handled during a single month at the Cargo Centre of Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), with 21,743 metric tonnes in the month of March 2016.

SriLankan Cargo is the sole cargo handler at BIA, where it deals with cargo of all airlines that operate to Sri Lanka’s main international airport, including imports, exports and transhipments. The figure surpassed the previous highest amount of 20,040 tonnes, achieved a year ago in March, 2015.

Significantly, this has exceeded the design capacity of the SriLankan Cargo Centre, which is 20,833 tonnes per month.

In 2015, the SriLankan Cargo Centre set a new record for total freight handled at BIA during a single year – 212,277 tonnes, which included 35,877 tonnes of transhipment cargo. This surpassed the 199,651 tonnes handled in 2014.

SriLankan Airlines Head of Cargo Chamara Ranasinghe said: “We are delighted to report that our forecast indicates 2016 will be another record-setting year for SriLankan Cargo. Our cargo centre has already handled 56,780 tonnes during the first three months of this year, which is the highest total that we have seen during the January to March period during any year, surpassing the 52,169 tonnes in the comparable period last year.”

Senior Manager Worldwide Cargo Operations Janaka Munasinghe said: “These achievements are the result of sustained teamwork and sheer hard work by the entire team at SriLankan Cargo. We are constantly searching for innovative methods to increase our high levels of efficiency and provide an even better service to our customers around the world.”

SriLankan’s Cargo Centre, which takes great pride in its high level of handling reliability which borders on 100%, recently received an award of appreciation from the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce for its steadfast role in supporting the nation’s economic activities. The state of the art 25,000 square metre cargo centre has dedicated areas for imports, exports and transhipments, sophisticated facilities for cold storage, animal handling and dangerous goods, CCTV facilities to secure all goods, a high-security area for valuables and a 24-hour customer care centre. Online tracking through SkyChain allows customers to track their shipments in real time right up to their destinations.

SriLankan Cargo operates to all of SriLankan Airlines’ 99 destinations in 47 countries on its all-Airbus fleet of A320, A321 and A330 aircraft. It also operates a dedicated freighter service in South Asia providing scheduled flights to cities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,  with charter operations to many other cities throughout the region.