TRAVEL

Nature Odyssey works with BBC on whales

Nature Odyssey, the nature and adventure brand of Walkers Tours was the ground handling agent for a film crew from the BBC UK who were in Sri Lanka recently to film a documentary on the blue whale.

The BBC crew and the scientists.

One of the many blue whale sightings experienced by the BBC crew

The documentary titled "Ocean Giants" features the fascinating world of whales and dolphins and attempts to shed light on these elusive creatures of the deep through the eyes of the dedicated scientists who study them around the world.

The series will be aired on BBC 1 in June this year.

World renowned ameramen Didier Noirot and Doug Allan travelled to Sri Lanka to meet with Sri Lankan scientists Anouk Illangakoon, Asha de Vos and American Scientist Ari Freidlander.

Their mission was to find out why blue whales grow so large.

Sri Lankan waters are unique for having blue whales throughout the year, a mystery that the scientists are attempting to solve.

This involves checking the water nutrient content and more interestingly examining whale excrement, which is incidentally neon orange in colour and floats!

The highlights of the 11 days at sea were the amazing sightings of blue whales, sometimes up to 30 in a single day! This included a mother-calf pair and several single females and males.

To date up to 27 species of cetaceans have been recorded in Sri Lankan waters. The BBC crew was rewarded with an observation of one of the largest schools of Risso's dolphins ever seen - in the act of fishing a school of tuna, the bizarre sight of a Manta Ray jumping six feet into the air to shake off parasites, and the endearing spinner dolphins whose speed and grace is always breathtaking to watch. A rare sighting of two Orcas, and a Right Whale was another major highlight of the tour.

Nature Odyssey was responsible for coordinating with the Ministries of Defence and Tourism for filming approval and for all logistical arrangements.

All the cameramen have vowed to return and continue filming in the country, not only have the blues captured their hearts but also Sri Lanka's crazy traffic, which they think will be a smash hit documentary, no pun intended.

Double win for SriLankan Catering at Mercury Awards

SriLankan Catering achieved the rare feat of winning two of the seven Mercury Awards - the sought after accolades in the global travel catering industry presented by the International Travel Catering Association (ITCA) at the ITCA global convention in Nice, France recently.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa being presented the Mercury awards by SriLankan Chairman - Nishanta Wickremasinghe and CEO SriLankan Catering Sarath Fernando. Also in the picture are CEO SriLankan Airlines Manoj Gunawardena, Minister Environment Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Minister of Civil Aviation Priyankara Jayaratne.

SriLankan Catering won both categories that it sent nominations for - 'Heavy Equipment' for its innovative food waste sterilisation; and 'Environment' for its conservation program.

CEO SriLankan Catering Sarath Fernando said, "Winning a Mercury is a very special moment for a travel catering organisation. Winning two, speaks volumes of the professionalism of the SriLankan Catering team!"

Winners of other categories were Asiana Airlines (On-Board Service), Emirates Flight Catering (Food and Beverage), W.K. Thomas (Light Equipment), DHL (Skills Development), and Air Canada (Systems and Process Development).

Entries were judged on criteria that included innovation, creativity, quality, practicality, cost-effectiveness, usefulness, customer satisfaction, ease of usage, improved service delivery, and environment-friendliness. SriLankan Catering is the fully owned subsidiary of SriLankan Airlines.

It is the sole airline caterer in Sri Lanka and serves airlines operating out of Bandaranaike International Airport. Its state-of-the-art flight kitchen in Katunayake produces an average of more than 11,000 meals per day.

It is also active in related products and services including operating airport restaurants at Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), supplying food products for restaurants and lounges run by other companies, managing the BIA transit hotel, and has its own industrial laundry. SriLankan won the awards for its innovative approach to the disposal of more than one metric ton of food waste each day. It had been incinerating the waste which was a highly polluting method.

In 2010 it took the bold step of investing in an Autoclave food sterilisation system, the first time in history that this machine has been used by an airline caterer. The Autoclave sterilised the food at 121 degrees centigrade, and the food waste was then sent to a nearby farm, itself a model in conservation practices, for use as food for farm animals.

SriLankan flies to Kochi, increases capacity

SriLankan Airlines has expanded its network, with an increase in capacity to Karachi, Bahrain, Doha and Muscat, and the launch of a daily service to Kochi.

SriLankan's Head of Worldwide Sales Mohamed Fazeel said: "Global travellers have once again discovered Sri Lanka, and SriLankan Airlines is expanding services around the world as rapidly as possible to spur on the tourist boom. We are also acquiring more aircraft while upgrading our product and services to give passengers the most delightful experience on board."

The Airline last year began reinventing its service vowing "to change the way we fly and the way our passengers experience travel." Much of the increase in capacity is in the Middle East, with the present flights to Bahrain, Doha and Muscat being delinked and operating as direct non stop flights from Colombo to each city.

SriLankan will also add a fifth frequency to Pakistan's largest city Karachi.

The Airline's seventh destination in India, Kochi will see services recommence from March 27.

This will increase SriLankan's flights to India up to 63 per week. The other destinations are Chennai, Mumbai, Trichy, New Delhi, Bangalore and Trivandrum.

SriLankan earlier served Kochi from 2003, but temporarily suspended the service in 2009 during the global economic crisis which caused a worldwide slump in air travel.

SriLankan also launched a new service to Guangzhou in January, its fourth destination in China.

The Airline is in the midst of a sustained long-term growth and has a global route network serving 51 cities in 32 nations.

It is expected to acquire seven more aircraft in 2011 in addition to the three it took delivery of in the second half of 2010.

It will also upgrade its passenger cabins with Flat Bed Seating and the latest Audio-Video-On-Demand (AVOD) entertainment systems this year.

Its domestic service, SriLankan Air Taxi, commenced services last December, making any part of the island accessible within minutes.

RCL expands to Colombo

Regional Container Lines (RCL) offered a new RPI Westbound/Eastbound service from March 01, making double calls at Colombo to cater to the growing markets in Sri Lanka.

Founded in 1979, RCL is a Thai based container shipping line, public listed on the Thai Stock Exchange since 1988.

Its core business is in the Carriage of Shipper Owned Containers (SOC) and its own Carrier Owned Containers (COC) within a service network that is fully Asia centric.

RCL currently owns and operates a fleet of 43 vessels with sizes ranging between 500 TEUs to 2,732 TEUs, with a fleet of 79,854 TEUs to support its own COC carriage as well.

It also operates a network of 59 offices made up of owned and agency offices to support its service structure. RCL is recognised as a leading SOC and Intra Asia COC operator by peers and customers.