Dimuthu Tennakoon, Head of Commercial, SriLankan Airlines, in an exclusive interaction with Kamal Gill, Executive Editor, Today’s Traveller, speaks about the airline’s growing reach in India, the significance of premium and group traffic, upcoming expansion plans, and the opportunities he sees ahead for Indian travellers flying into Sri Lanka and beyond
As Head of Commercial at SriLankan Airlines, Dimuthu Tennakoon plays a central role in shaping the carrier’s growth strategy across one of SriLankan Airlines’ most important source markets: India. With a strong network spanning major metros and regional gateways, the airline is steadily deepening its footprint while strengthening Sri Lanka’s appeal for leisure, business and MICE travellers.
Today’s Traveller: How would you describe SriLankan Airlines’ current strength in the Indian market?
Dimuthu Tennakoon: SriLankan Airlines has a very strong presence in India. At present, we operate 89 flights a week across 9 destinations, giving us extensive connectivity between India and Sri Lanka. Whether travellers are flying from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai or cities further south such as Trichy, Madurai, Trivandrum and Cochin, they are able to access Sri Lanka conveniently through our network.
We operate daily flights from almost all these points, and from some points we even operate double daily, with Chennai hosting Triple daily flights, which gives us a strong advantage in the market. With this scale of connectivity and frequency, we believe we are very well positioned to serve Indian travellers across leisure, business and MICE segments.
Today’s Traveller: How important are leisure, business and MICE traffic from India to SriLankan Airlines?
Dimuthu Tennakoon: India is an extremely important market for SriLankan Airlines across all three segments: leisure, business and MICE. In particular, MICE presents a very strong opportunity for us. Before Covid, MICE accounted for more than 20% of our India business, and today I would estimate it stands at around 15%.
India also delivered approximately 531,000 leisure travellers to Sri Lanka last year, which represented about 23% of total tourist arrivals. In terms of the broad traffic mix, I would estimate that around 60% is leisure, 15% is MICE, and the remaining 25% is business travel. These are approximate numbers, but they reflect the strength and balance of the market.
Sri Lanka also enjoys the advantage of being within a comfortable range of one hour to three-and-a-half hours flying time from key Indian cities, which makes it highly attractive for short leisure breaks, corporate travel and incentive movements. Hotel accommodation and overall destination accessibility also support this demand very well.
Today’s Traveller: What are your current expansion plans for India?
Dimuthu Tennakoon: At the moment, our biggest focus is on strengthening and expanding our India operations further. As I mentioned, we currently operate 89 flights a week across 9 destinations, and after extensive internal discussions over the past five years, we finally decided that the time is right to expand further in India.
Our 10th destination will be Ahmedabad. We expect to launch operations in the next couple of months, subject to the necessary approvals from both authorities. From the airline’s side, we are ready. We plan to begin with four weekly frequencies to Ahmedabad, which is an important and vibrant gateway in Gujarat.
This will be a significant addition to our network. It will create new value not only for SriLankan Airlines, but also for Sri Lanka’s tourism sector. At the same time, Ahmedabad will help strengthen our wider international connectivity, as passengers will be able to connect onwards through Colombo to our Far Eastern, Australian and European destinations. We are planning schedules carefully, with different timings, to improve connections to places such as Australia and other key markets, and we are very much looking forward to this next phase of growth.
Today’s Traveller: Which Indian cities do you currently serve, including Tier 2 destinations?
Dimuthu Tennakoon: At present, we operate to 9 destinations in India. Our metro gateways include Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. Alongside these, we also serve important Tier 2 and regional destinations such as Madurai, Trichy, Trivandrum and Cochin.
These regional points are extremely important because they allow us to tap into strong point-to-point demand as well as onward international traffic. Some of these operations were affected in the period after COVID, but today our focus is firmly on rebuilding and growing the network strategically.
Today’s Traveller: What are the biggest bottlenecks to growth, and how are you addressing them?
Dimuthu Tennakoon: The biggest challenge at the moment, not only for us but for many airlines, is aircraft availability. It is very difficult to find aircraft in the market today. The demand is certainly there across multiple Indian cities, but without additional aircraft, expansion becomes more challenging. That is the number one bottleneck for us.
That said, with the aircraft currently available to us, we are managing our operations carefully and efficiently, and we have even been able to accommodate the upcoming Ahmedabad launch within this framework. India and Sri Lanka have always shared a strong bilateral relationship, and the travel flows between the two countries remain very healthy.
We have also seen encouraging results through targeted promotions. For instance, our Ramayana campaign has been highly successful, and we are now continuing with a range of post-Ramayana initiatives to sustain that momentum. In addition, cricket traffic has also contributed positively. This month alone, we operated around seven additional flights out of India linked to match schedules and changing demand patterns.
Beyond Sri Lanka itself, our network strength also supports onward travel. Through Colombo, we offer connections to the Far East, Australia and other destinations, including Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Seoul, Tokyo and the Maldives. We are also seeing Indian travellers use Sri Lanka as a convenient gateway onwards to the Maldives. Our holiday arm, SriLankan Holidays, is working closely with Indian partners and Maldivian hotels, and the numbers are encouraging.
Today’s Traveller: Are you seeing strong premium demand, and what would you like to say to Indian travellers?
Dimuthu Tennakoon: Yes, we are seeing very healthy premium demand. In fact, even on yesterday’s flights, business class was full on almost all flights out of North and Western India. We operate a two-class configuration: Economy and Business Class, and premium demand continues to be strong across the network.
At the same time, our fares remain highly competitive, which is important in a price-sensitive market like India. Out of the 531,000 Indian tourist arrivals into Sri Lanka, we carry around 40%, while the remaining 60% travels on other Indian carriers. That gives us a very strong share of the market.
My message to Indian travellers is simple: if you are planning a leisure holiday to Sri Lanka, try SriLankan Airlines. Your holiday begins the moment you step on board.
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