Unable to expand routes as fast as expected

Tourism activity in Sri Lanka is picking up but despite the increased momentum, national carrier SriLankan Airlines said it would not be able to expand its routes as much as it wanted. 

SriLankan Airlines CEO Richard Nuttall said that purely due to the lack of aircraft in the world, the national carrier would not be able to increase the frequencies and routes as planned. 

“We will not be expanding quite as fast as we hoped in terms of routes. How much we expand our frequency depends on the number of aircraft we have,” said Nuttall to Mirror Business.  In the last quarter of 2022, SriLankan issued a Request for Proposal to replace the aircraft, for which the lease term was ending.    “We will grow cautiously because of the aircraft situation,” he added. 

However, Nuttall said SriLankan is expected to be flying more towards the end of the year than it is at present. 
Further, he stressed the need to increase the flight frequency, particularly to India, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Dubai, the UAE. 

“We will be doing it gradually,” noted Nuttall.