SriLankan Airlines to focus on 15 tier II cities

Sri Lanka's largest carrier SriLankan Airlines is all set to start operations from fifteen tier II cities and Kolkata, even as it recently hiked its fuel surcharge by 8% across all sectors in India.

"We would like to focus on 15 tier II cities in India where we have unlimited access. We will also explore the option of going to Kolkata, the only metro we have not ventured into yet," said SriLankan CEO, Peter Hill at a press conference today.

He declined to mention the names however, saying that for further expansion they needed more aircraft. SriLankan has a fleet of 14 Airbus aircraft and they plan to acquire 12 more which will have an equal number of wide bodied and single aisle aircraft.

SriLankan covers all five metros except Kolkata in its Indian route network which has 11 destinations, the latest one being Coimbatore. With 100 weekly flights to India, SriLankan is the largest foreign carrier to India in terms of capacity.

The carrier has also recently increased its ticket price by 8% in terms of the fuel surcharge, "We cannot give the exact figure because the surcharge is not included under any separate head but is a part of the ticket fare," said Sharuka Wickrama-Aditya, manager, North India, while talking to reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

SriLankan carried 1.1 million passengers to and from India in 2006-07, a number which accounted for 32% of the airline's global passenger traffic.