Korean Air flies back after 28-year break

By Melissa Perera

Korean Air yesterday announced its return to Sri Lanka after a near three decade absence to launch thrice a week direct flights between Seoul and Colombo from 9 March 2013.

The major move was announced by Korean Air along with Alpha Tours together with Finco Group of companies.

 “We rank the second amongst the leading companies that provide passenger and cargo services in Sri Lanka,” Finco Group of Companies Chairman Sarath C. Weerasooria said. “Therefore we have positive in this investment on the long run,” he added.  

Korean Air will be adding Maldives capital Male to the network as well.

Alpha Tours is the associate company of the general sales agent in Sri Lanka for Korean Air since 1976. However, the flight was offline to Colombo for both passenger in 1984 and cargo in 1989. Korean Air initially had to pay a royalty to SriLankan Airlines, however Alpha Tours together with the Freight Forwarders Association managed to get a waiver on the royalty charges. Being the first carrier to uplift 75 tons of tuna fish on one flight, and having being the first flight to carry two baby elephants to Korea and Japan, the flight will recommence on 9 March 2013.

“Korean Air is the first freight carrier to have a regular service in Sri Lanka. According to recent calculations, 25 million tourists travel from Korea to different countries in the world. We at Korean Air would like to grab a few to our country as well,” said Korean Air General Manager Priyantha Mendis.

“The reason as to why we chose Colombo as our destination is because 50% of Korea and Sri Lanka share the same religious values. We are hoping that most of the Buddhist pilgrims would add Colombo to their travel chart,” said Representative of Korean Air J. Kong.  “The flight will be operating from Colombo three times per week, on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. We are starting up after a long break because the tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka have gradually increased over the past years. We are targeting mainly on tourists from the US, Japan, Korea and Japan,” said Mendis.

“Speaking about the accommodation for the tourists who fly through Korean Air, we have three hotels with 150 rooms. We have already spoken to many travel agents in Korea to introduce some of our packages,” said Finco Group of Companies Chief Executive Officer Harsha De Saram. “Many Korean tourist couples use The Maldives for their honeymoons because of the beaches. But we will be providing them with an additional advantage of visiting most of the historical places, mainly Kandy and the Cultural Triangle,” Harsha added. The flight route will be through Soul, Colombo and Male, with a return air ticket priced at Rs. 90,000. The flight time will be eight hours and 15 minutes. The flight consists of 18 business class seats, six first class seats, and 252 economy seats.

“We are operating 23 flights to Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi per week. We could proudly say that we are the first longest first class flight that operates three days a week,” Mendis added.