National Carrier SriLankan Airlines will use its entire fleet for scheduled cargo operations from May 18.
“The company has decided to go for a dedicated cargo flight schedule which will not only provide the vital local exports industries with critical air cargo capacity, but also bring in some vital income for the airline until the passenger operations commence and revenue starts coming in,” SriLankan Airlines Head of Cargo Chamara Ranasinghe told Daily News Finance yesterday.
These flight operations which will start from Monday May 18, will be to almost all the pre-COVID19 network of destinations such as London, Dubai, Doha, Mumbai, Chennai, Karachi, Lahore, Dhaka, Melbourne, Canton, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore and Hong Kong. The schedule will also include new destinations with key Cargo significance such as Frankfurt and Hong Kong too. There will be approximately 38 flight movements per week in and out of the Bandaranaike International Airport with this latest initiative by SriLankan cargo, he said.
This flight schedule to European and Far Eastern destinations will primarily help the local export industries such perishables, such as vegetables, fisheries, seafood and live ornamental fish exporters to carry a base load of their supplies, keeping up with un-interrupted supply chain of their produce and products to their customers providing guaranteed volumes.
This will also create the opportunity to the already disrupted apparel industry to stock up the much required raw materials to commence their production, which will complete the supply chain, he said.
The return flights will import the much needed medical supplies and other essential goods not only to Sri Lanka but also to the network of countries we have scheduled to operate to, Ranasinghe said.
The National Carrier will also be focusing to promote Colombo as the preferred gateway to connect their airfreight businesses to the rest of the world by the introduction this Cargo flight schedule at these unprecedented times, where not many carriers operate scheduled operations and as a result most customers have been suffering not being able to provide their customers with un interrupted supply chain solutions.
“My team and I are very confident that this initiative will help our various long standing Freight customers and business partners within our already established network to continue their business as usual connecting the world through the gateways of Colombo. This means for instance, that if a U.K. client wants to source its medical supplies from China, it could use SriLankan Airlines to airfreight the cargo between the two cities,” Ranasinghe explained.
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