200 flights to be cancelled over temporary shutdown of BIA

Some 200 flights will be cancelled and a revenue loss of U$ 47 million to be incurred due to maintenance of the runway at the Bandaranaike International Airport, the Chief Executive Officer of SriLankan Airlines says.

The BIA is scheduled to be closed for eight hours in 2017 for three months to carry out maintenance work in the runway.

The airport operations will be halted for eight hours per day for a period of three months from January 05 from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. 

SriLankan CEO Capt. Suren Ratwatte also said that 5 brand new Airbus A320neo aircraft will be added on lease to the fleet in 2017.

He said that flights to London will be increased to 9 per week starting from November, 2016. 

SriLankan Airlines last month announced  changes to its schedule over a three-month period commencing from 06th January 2017 to 06th  April 2017, due to the closure of Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport from 0830 hours to 1630 hours each day for maintenance work on  the runway.

The following flights have been cancelled. However, SriLankan will continue to serve each of these destinations through its flights at other times of the day:

UL308 Colombo-Singapore and UL 309 Singapore-Colombo
UL127 Colombo-Chennai and UL122 Chennai-Colombo
UL133 Colombo-Trichy and UL132 Trichy-Colombo
UL115 Colombo-Male and UL102 Male-Colombo
UL167 Colombo-Cochin and UL166 Cochin-Colombo
UL173 Colombo-Bangalore and UL174 Bangalore-Colombo

The following flights have been shifted to alternate times of the day:

UL868 Colombo-Beijing.
UL866 Colombo-Shanghai.
UL402 Colombo-Bangkok and UL403 Bangkok-Colombo
UL318 Colombo-Kuala Lumpur and UL319 Kuala Lumpur-Colombo
UL306 Colombo-Singapore and UL307 Singapore-Colombo
UL161 Colombo-Trivandrum and UL162 Trivandrum -Colombo
UL195 Colombo-New Delhi and UL196 New Delhi-Colombo
UL183 Colombo-Karachi and UL184 Karachi-Colombo
UL503 Colombo-London and UL504 London-Colombo (From 05th January UL 504 will operate as London-Malé -Colombo)
UL281 Colombo-Jeddah and UL282 Jeddah-Colombo

Passengers who have already booked tickets on any of the above flights should contact their travel agent or the nearest SriLankan Airlines ticket office for details on revised times and/or alternative routings.