The Ramayana Trail is a game changer for us...

SriLankan Airlines major market is India and it has introduced many initiatives to cater to the travelers.

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The pax numbers are increasing alongwith the flights and this really motivates the airlines to focus here in 2025. During the ongoing SATTE events in New Delhi, Fawzan Faried, Regional Manager-India, Bangladesh and Nepal, Sri Lankan Airlines in an interview with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World speaks about the business from India, and the plans ahead to meet the ongoing travelers. Excerpts...

Q: Kindly focus on the presence of Sri Lankan Airlines into India and how much flights do you operate from here?

A: Sri Lankan Airlines use to operating 124 flights into India pre-covid and we were the first foreign carrier to operate more than 100 flights to India. But subsequent to Covid, we had to downsize our operations. We are gradually back, getting back to where we were pre-Covid.

Currently, we are operating 89 flights a week into India and we want to grow more. By the end of the year probably we will be having 94 service to India and we are trying to cross 100 flights as soon as possible.

Q: Which all cities of India and number of flights Sri Lankan Airlines operate as of now?

We are operating 14 flights to Delhi, 16 flights to Mumbai, 21 flights to Chennai for a week, 10 flights a week to Bangalore, 4 flights to Hyderabad, daily service to Cochin, 4 flights to Thiruvananthapuram, 8 service to Tiruchirappalli and 6 flights to Madurai.

That's the current setup, but moving forward we want to increase the number of flights to Mumbai up to 19 flights by the end of the year.

Q: Recently Sri Lankan Airlines started a new marketing initiative for the Ramayana Trial. So how is the response till now?