SriLankan to start daily flights to Beijing and Shanghai from next week

SriLankan Airlines will commence daily direct flights to Beijing and Shanghai from 15 July to accommodate the increasing number of Chinese tourists.

With this new flight schedule, the total number of flights operated by SriLankan to China and Hong Kong increases to 21 per week.

Presently, SriLankan flies three times a week to Beijing and four times a week to Shanghai with a stopover at Bangkok. It also flies four times a week to Guangzhou (Canton) and three times a week to Hong Kong.

The new flights to Shanghai will operate on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, in addition to the four existing flights on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  According to the regional manager for the Asia Pacific Dimuthu Tennakoon, the new daily frequencies will further enhance the carrier’s services for Chinese tourists to Bangkok, Colombo and Male, which are the most popular destinations for Chinese travellers to Sri Lanka.  The airline’s connections to destinations in Europe and the Middle East will offer services to travellers from those regions to visit China and vice versa, Tennakoon has noted.

SriLankan Airlines Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe has told Xinhua that there is a tremendous amount of potential for the future of the airline and hence the decision to have daily flights to Beijing and Shanghai.

The airline has served Beijing since 2005 and launched services to Shanghai in 2010 and to Guangzhou in 2011. It has served Hong Kong for over 30 years.

In the first five months of this year number of Chinese tourists arrived in the country increased 12.2 per cent from last year to 8,395.

China and Sri Lanka enjoy strong bilateral relations politically and commercially with China being the largest donor funding several mega infrastructure projects in the island.