SRI LANKA: SriLankan Airlines Traffic Went Down In 2018

SriLankan Airlines commenced operations between Colombo and Melbourne on 29 October 2017, with the latter airport giving the inaugural flight a water arch salute.

Data from the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka shows that during the first 12 months of operation, the oneworld member carried 157,342 passengers on the route. This service was also the last route that was introduced to the carrier’s network, with no new routes planned for 2019 so far either.

SriLankan Airlines is the flag carrier of Sri Lanka and a member of oneworld. It currently operates a fleet of 27 aircraft, made-up of seven A320s of which two are neos, seven A321s three neos, six A330-200s and seven A330-300s.

It’s home base is Colombo’s Bandaranaike Airport, where in 2018 the carrier occupied 50% of seat capacity. According to data obtained from Sri Lanka’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the airline flew just under 1.42 million passengers during Q3 2018, with this down 3.3% versus the 1.46 million that it flew within the same quarter of 2017.

Between November 2017 and October 2018, the carrier flew just under six million passengers according to Sri Lanka’s CAA.

SriLankan Airlines’ leading route from Colombo is Chennai, with the airline having transported over half a million passengers on the route between January and October last year, accounting for 10% of the carrier’s total passengers flown within the 10-month period analysed.

The airline currently serves the 647-kilometre route four times daily, using a mixture of its narrow- and wide-body fleet.

India is the airline’s largest market, with it serving 13 destinations in India on either a seasonal or year-round basis during the time frame analysed, with six Indian cities placing in the airline’s top 15 destinations for passengers carried.

Between January and October, 33% of the airline’s passengers flew on services to/from India.

After India, the airline’s second biggest market is the Middle East, with this region accounting for 24% or 1.16 million passengers of the the carrier’s customers between January and October last year.

Presently the airline serves nine destinations in the Middle East from Colombo, with Doha, Dubai, Riyadh and Kuwait City all making it into the airline’s top 15 destinations with regards to passengers carried.

One route which just missed out on a place in the top 15 is the airline’s newest destination Melbourne, a route that the airline launched on 29 October 2017.

Placing 16th in the airline’s top routes relating to passengers carried, the link to Australia transported 129,110 passengers within the first 10 months of last year, while during its first full 12 months of operation November 2017 – October 2018, the route carried 157,342 passengers.

The airline’s other routes to carry over 100,000 passengers within a 12-month time frame Nov 2017 – Oct 2018, were Jakarta, Guangzhou, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Thiruvananthapuram, Dhaka, Shanghai Pudong, Tokyo Narita, Bahrain and Beijing.

While SriLankan Airlines added its last new route in October 2017, it has since cut three routes from Colombo, namely to Hong Kong which ended 27 October 2018, Visakhapatnam 27 October and Kunming 28 February.

The loss of these routes means that in S19, the carrier is poised to offer a network of 38 destinations, with no new routes being planned or announced by the airline for this year.

Male was the leading destination for SriLankan Airlines’ connecting traffic between July 2017 and June 2018, with it accounting for 9.0% of one-way connecting passengers during this 12-month period, while Chennai was second, responsible for 7.6% of connecting traffic.

With these routes being the airline’s top routes for total passenger numbers from Colombo, and having multi-daily frequencies, it is not surprising to see them top the list of connecting destinations as well.

What is interesting to note is that, of the airline’s leading connections, all of them, bar Jeddah, are within a distance of 4,500 kilometres of Colombo.

Of the airline’s top 15 routes for total passenger numbers, only Male, Chennai, Kochi, Riyadh, Singapore, Tiruchirappalli, Kuwait City, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, Kuala Lumpur, Doha and Dubai were included in the top 15 connecting routes, with Delhi, London Heathrow, Bengaluru and Mumbai not making the connections cut.

This suggests that the latter four destinations are more dominant for O&D traffic to/from Colombo then they are for connecting services via SriLankan’s hub.

During the past decade, SriLankan Airlines had a number of routes into Europe, however these we cut as a result of cost cutting measures for the airline as it re-focused its strategy in recent years.

However, if it was to return to expansion in the long-haul market, OAG Traffic Analyser data indicates that strong destinations for the airline, regarding O&D traffic from Colombo, would be Paris CDG 70,000 one-way indirect passengers between July 2017 and June 2018, Frankfurt 58,100, Milan Malpensa 45,300, Rome Fiumicino 40,400 and Munich 35,900.


Tourism Observer

CHINA: Shanghai Flights Delayed Or Cancelled Over Heavy Thunderstorms

More than 400 flights have been cancelled and nearly 100 others delayed at Shanghai’s two airports on Friday after thunder and heavy rain hit the coastal city.

The Chinese air traffic controller issued an orange alert warning of serious cancellations and delays at Pudong and Hongqiao airports, estimating that take-off and landing capacities would be reduced by 60 per cent.

Pudong International Airport had cancelled 227 departing flights and 123 inbound flights by 9pm, while a further 49 flights had been delayed, Shanghai Airport Authority announced on its Weibo account.

At the smaller Hongqiao International Airport, which is mainly used for domestic flights, 195 flights had been cancelled, with 27 others delayed.

The impact of the weather at the two airports was expected to continue until 10pm, according to Air Traffic Information.

The airport in the nearby city of Nanjing was also affected by the thunder and rain, losing around 30 per cent of its capacity.

Airports in the Yangtze River Delta saw the worst delays across the country, according to data analysis firm VariFlight.com. A total of 370 flights had been delayed as of 4pm on Friday.

Many travellers said they faced serious disruption to their travel plans as a result.

It’s the first time my flight has been cancelled, said a shopping agent from Zhuhai in the southern province of Guangdong, who was due to fly to the city to catch a connecting flight to Seoul for a business trip.

The agent said their only option now was to take the high-speed railway and hope they could still catch their flight.

Another Weibo user said her flight from Shanghai Pudong to Xian had been delayed for five hours.

It was due to take off at 8.30am. I was notified of the delay, and then a cancellation, but it finally took off at 1.30pm. My mood was like riding a roller coaster.


Tourism Observer

CHINA: China’s Airports And Airlines Worst In Flight Delays

Mainland facilities and carriers lag far behind the international competition as management fails to keep up with the demand for travel.

Chinese airports and airlines were the worst in the world for being on time last year, according to a US-based company that tracks air travel around the globe.

Among the world's 61 largest airports, the seven worst performers for on-time departures were all mainland airports, with Hangzhou's Xiaoshan, Shanghai's Hongqiao and Shanghai's Pudong facilities taking the bottom three spots, according to FlightStats, a US-based data provider on air travel.

Just 37.74 per cent of flights left on time from Xiaoshan, 37.17 per cent from Hongqiao and 37.26 per cent from Pudong.

Those three were closely followed in the survey by Shenzhen Baoan, Guangzhou Baiyun, Chongqing Airport and Beijing Capital International Airport.

Out of the world's largest 61 airports, Japan's Haneda Airport was the best with an on-time rate of 89.76 per cent. The best performer among the 374 world airports of all sizes looked at by FlightStats was another Japanese airport, Itami, with an on-time rate of 94.56 per cent.

Zou Jianjun, from the Civil Aviation Management Institute of China, said management of China's facilities had not kept up with demand and the network was concentrated in a few areas.

"Flight lines are too centralised in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and it's a big challenge for their managers," he said. "Even if a small mistake happens at any of these major airports, it's quite possible that flights in other cities will be affected."

The results were no better within the region, with Chinese airports languishing in the bottom half of the 121 Asia -Pacific facilities of all sizes examined last year. Hong Kong International Airport also slipped, down from No22 in the region in January 2013 to 80th last year.

There were no mainland or Hong Kong airlines in the world's top 10 for on-time arrivals last year, FlightStats said. The world leader was KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which had 88.66 per cent of its flights arrive on time.

The results reflect the all-too-common experience of cancelled or delayed flights at mainland airports, experts said.

Zhang Wuan, spokesman for Shanghai-based budget carrier Spring Airlines, said the poor showing by mainland airlines and airports was the result of the rapid growth in civil aviation.

About 390 million passengers took flights on the mainland in 2014, double the total for 2009, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

The Civil Aviation Data Analysis website said that about 65 per cent of mainland flights left on time last year.

The website said that if all the extra time that passengers and crew spent waiting on the tarmac for flights to take off on the mainland in 2014 was added up, it would amount to about 232 years.

Even notified flight delays added up to about 183 years, it said.

Poor management at airports and carriers was compounded by bad weather last month during the peak Lunar New Year travel season, a traditional time for family reunions.

FlightStats said there were 92,839 delays by mainland airlines compared with 32,428 delays by carriers in the rest of the Asia-Pacific region.

Most mainland airlines' on-time arrival rates were about 50 per cent last month, with Shenzhen Airlines recording a rate of as low as 37.4 per cent and an average delay of 64 minutes. Xiamen Airlines was even worse with 33.82 per cent on-time arrival rate and an average delay of 70 minutes.