SriLankan Airlines celebrates the first anniversary of the launch of direct services to Melbourne this month, looking back with much satisfaction on a bold commercial decision that has proven to be a significant success for both the National Carrier and Sri Lanka’s tourism industry that has opened up new opportunities for the airline and the country.
Following the start of the direct service to Melbourne in October 2017, Australian visitor arrivals to Sri Lanka have grown by extraordinary numbers. Year on year growth in the 9 months up to 30th September 2018 was an astounding 45.16%, according to figures from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. This was far higher than the 2.8% growth rate that the tourism industry has experienced from all countries combined during this period.
Australia is now firmly established as the 6th largest tourism generating market to Sri Lanka with a 4.55% market share of foreign visitors, and is also the fastest growing major market. Although it lags behind India, China, UK, Germany and France in terms of volume, its growth rate far surpasses those of the top five countries.
Travelers journeying between the Australian continent and the Indian Ocean island nation now enjoy the convenience of daily direct flights between Colombo and Melbourne.
Flight timings
| Flight number | Sector | Departure time | Arrival time |
| UL 604 | Colombo- Melbourne | 0020 | 1540 |
| UL 605 | Melbourne-Colombo | 1725 | 2235 |
*All times local
Earlier, travelers had to spend many hours flying on other airlines via Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or even as far afield as Bangkok and Hong Kong. On board SriLankan’s modern Airbus A330 aircraft, passengers enjoy SriLankan’s award winning world class service, sophisticated inflight entertainment, delectable cuisine and other comforts such as flatbeds in Business Class.
The Airline has upgraded the Melbourne service with the introduction of state of the art A330-300 aircraft in the second year of operations, providing even greater comforts than the A330-200 aircraft that were operating on the route during the last year.
A total of 78,756 Australian visitors travelled to Sri Lanka in the 9 months ending September 2018, to which can be added a further 9,811 from New Zealand, many of whom travelled via Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria. New Zealand arrivals grew by 13.5% in the first 9 months of 2018. These visitor numbers do not include the additional thousands of Sri Lankan passport holders domiciled in Australia and New Zealand who also utilized the Melbourne-Colombo service, such as Sri Lankan students in Australian and New Zealand universities. Australia is home to one of the largest Sri Lankan communities outside Sri Lanka, of which almost 50 percent live in and around Victoria, making Melbourne the convenient terminus for their departures and arrivals.
The importance of the Melbourne service was amplified by the almost simultaneous expansion of SriLankan’s codeshare agreement with Australia’s flag carrier and fellow oneworld airline alliance member Qantas, providing passengers with a wide range of options for seamless connectivity to fly to and from major cities in Australia and New Zealand – namely Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney in Australia, and New Zealand’s largest city Auckland.
Aussie travelers also use the direct service to Colombo for convenient onward connections to the entire South Asian region, with Sri Lankan being the largest foreign carrier to both India and the Maldives. There has also been a significant increase in the number of Sri Lankans travelling to Australia, visiting relatives or on vacation, although statistics are not immediately available.
The commencement of Sri Lankan’s service to Melbourne also resulted in award-winning marketing campaigns in Australia to promote the new service. The Melbourne launch campaign “Two Cities, One Spirit” bagged the ‘Asia’s Leading Marketing Campaign 2018’ accolade at the World Travel Awards 2018 Asia & Australasia Ceremony in Hong Kong; and also the ‘first star’ in the Campaign category at the Golden City Gate Awards 2018 at ITB Berlin, the world’s largest tourism trade fair.
Coinciding with the first anniversary of its operations to Melbourne, the Airline successfully concluded Sri Lankan Airlines Half Marathon event at the Medibank Melbourne Marathon Festival for the second consecutive year. The 2018 event set a new record in the 41 year-long Festival history with 34,734 participants across the five distances- the highest figure yet including a sellout event for the Sri Lankan Airlines Half Marathon.
Among 12000 participants, Australian International Representative Brett Robinson ( 1:04:15) and Commonwealth Games representative Melanie Panayiotou (1:15:17) emerged winners of the male and female categories of the Half Marathon respectively.
Other marketing efforts included the Australian leg of Sir Ian Botham’s famed charity walk “Beefy’s Trek Down Under,” to raise funding for leukemia research, the fight against Type 1 Diabetes and auto-immune disease. As a result, there was a significant increase in media publicity that encouraged Australian tourists seeking sun and fun, culture and adventure to travel to Sri Lanka – the Paradise Island. The launch of the direct service also encouraged many Australian travel agents to actively promote travel to Sri Lanka, and Sri Lankan travel agents to do likewise for travel to Australia.
Sri Lankan’s global network covers 111 cities in 48 countries and as a member of the prestigious oneworld global airline alliance it also connects its passengers to oneworld’s worldwide network of more than 1,000 destinations in 160 countries.
Sri Lankan was honoured with a prestigious Four Star Rating by the Airline Passenger Experience Association for the second consecutive year. Sri Lanka’s national carrier has won a host of recent accolades including ‘Asia’s Leading Airline To The Indian Ocean – 2018’ and ‘Asia’s Leading Marketing Campaign-2018’ at the World Travel Awards for Asia and Australasia.