New aircraft for SriLankan:

National carrier opens new chapter

SriLankan Airlines began a new chapter in its long history with the arrival of its first brand new aircraft in more than a decade, a state-of the-art Airbus A320-200.

The aircraft touched down at Bandaranaike International Airport on May 19, from Airbus Industrie in Toulouse, France. Minister of Civil Aviation, Piyankara Jayaratne, Members of Parliament P.H. Piyasena, Hunais Farook and Indika Jamindra and Chairman of SriLankan Airlines, Nishantha Wickremasinghe were among the delegation which arrived with the aircraft.

The new aircraft was blessed by the clergy watched by thousands of members of the staff of the Airline, together with a large number of Government officials who included Members of Parliament.

This is the first of three brand new A320 aircraft to be acquired in 2011, the second and third of which are scheduled to arrive in the last quarter of the year.

The last brand new aircraft arrived as far back as the year 2000.

Chairman, SriLankan Airlines Nishantha Wickremasinghe said: The modernisation of our fleet is proceeding at a rapid pace in support of the long term vision of President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose goals for the development of our country include transforming Sri Lanka into a hub for tourism and aviation.

The National Carrier will acquire at least six aircraft this year in its rapid expansion program to support the country's, tourism industry which the Government has identified as a catalyst for the post-war economic boom. An A320 and a Twin Otter Floatplane arrived last month.

A wide-body A340 aircraft is also scheduled for arrival in May.

The Airline this year expanded its global route network to 51 destinations in 32 countries by launching new services to Guangzhou and Kochi, and has announced that it will commence flights to Moscow in September. It has also increased the number of flights and passenger capacity to most of its existing destinations.

Chief Executive Officer of the Airline Manoj Gunawardena said: With the arrival of this aircraft and two more later in the year, SriLankan Airlines will provide our passengers with the highest standards in comfort, convenience, and reliability.

These aircraft will greatly reduce the average age of our fleet and will bring about vastly improved performance, fuel efficiency, and safeguard the environment by significantly reducing engine emissions.

Among the sophisticated aspects of this aircraft are plush leather seating throughout the Business Class and Economy Class cabins; Airbus Industrie's new Cool Concept Interior; and Panasonic's latest eFX Audio Video On Demand (AVOD) entertainment system.

The AVOD system features touch screens at every seat, 9-inch in Business Class and 7-inch in Economy with 25 movies, 10 shorter variety programmes, 25 audio channels, and 15 games. Everyone of these is available on an on-demand basis, which means that passengers can choose to watch their favourite movies during the flight, rather than having to wait for the movie to be screened at a particular time.

The selection of songs include Sri Lankan, Arabic, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Urdu, Thai, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, European, Jazz, country and Classic. The seating configuration provides 20 seats in Business Class and 120 in Economy.