Message from Country Manager
Message from Country Manager
SriLankan Airlines is pleased to be of service to Indonesia and has been a longstanding member of the Jakarta community.
Our operating schedule has changed over the years but in the year 2000 we took a conscious decision to increase our presence and added 50% more capacity with the introduction of our 3rd weekly flight. To further meet the needs of our customers, one flight operates to Colombo via Singapore while the other two fly direct from Jakarta to Colombo. Our Colombo services are geared to both leisure and corporate travellers and we have excellent connections to other destinations on our route network in Europe, the Middle East, India and the Maldives.
All Indonesian services are operated with state-of-the-art, wide- bodied Airbus A330's and A340's and all flights feature in seat video entertainment systems in both the business and economy class cabins.
Sri Lanka is at the beginning of a major tourism growth cycle with harmony returned to the country mainly due to the success of the peace talks, now one year old. The year 2002 was a record year for SriLankan Airlines and we recorded the largest ever year of Indonesians visiting solely for tourism purposes. We are gearing for an increase in the number of tourism arrivals and this year offer no less than 37 choices of touring options through our Indonesian travel agency partners.
We also believe we have assisted the Indonesian community by bringing foreign tourists to Indonesia. 2002 saw a dramatic increase in Indian tourist arrivals and this is an area we plan to further cultivate in 2003.
SriLankan Airlines, formerly Air Lanka is now a revitalized flag carrier after privatisation when Emirates, the Dubai based airline, become a major shareholder. After our re-branding, SriLankan Airlines has won many service quality awards. In fact we have just received the TTG Asia award as the Best Airline in South Asia. We are proud of this and many other awards but our commitment is to become the best airline in South East Asia and we will not rest until our dream is a reality. We are the first to realise that consumer loyalty cannot be purchased, as some other airlines seem to think is possible and therefore we are resolved in our approach to offering a quality service at affordable prices. As the SriLankan Airlines brand continues to mature we will continue to grow and we hope in the not too distant future that we will be able to advise you of a 4th frequency to Jakarta.
Lakshman Weerasooriya Country Manager - Indonesia SriLankan Airlines