SriLankan to stop flights to Mattala from 9 Feb, cuts capacity to unprofitable routes

Saturday, 17 January 2015 03:07 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

nSays $ 18 m saving from redeployment of capacity to improve commercial performance SriLankan Airlines yesterday announced suspension of its services to and from Mattala from 9 February in addition to scaling down capacity in unprofitable routes, move which it said will save $ 18 million per annum. In a statement the national carrier said that on the direction of the State Minister of Aviation Faizer Mustapha, SriLankan Airlines has re-deployed its capacity and adjusted its scheduled operations to focus on more commercially sustainable services.

While the airline has already achieved a significant improvement in its financial performance for the current financial year, it is of the view that these commercially driven initiatives will help the airline to further improve the financial performance in the near term while continuing to deliver affordable travel options to its customers. On the instructions of the Minister, in the medium-term, the airline is also critically reviewing its entire route network, again with a view to being more commercially and bottom-line focused. The immediate schedule changes will see the airline rationalising its scheduled operations to and via MRIA and enhancing capacity to other high demand Middle East destinations, while reducing capacity to underperforming routes such as Moscow. “This translates to an annual bottom line improvement of approximately $ 18 million,” the airline said in its statement.