SriLankan launches direct flights to Kuwait

Sri Lanka's national carrier, SriLankan Airlines will start a direct daily flight to and from Kuwait from the 1st of May. Lal Perera, Regional Manager of SriLankan in the Middle East and Africa has told the Kuwait Times the need for the direct flight has become essential.
The new direct flight has been introduced due to the requests from the passengers for a daily and direct flight to and from Kuwait. The current Kuwait-Dubai-Colombo will be disconnected, but the direct Sri Lankan Airlines flight from Dubai to Colombo will continue, the Regional Manager has said. The planned flight will depart from Kuwait at 9:55 p.m. daily and arrive in Colombo at 6:15 a.m. local time. Sri Lanka's national carrier will be operating a total of 47 weekly flights into the Middle East effective next month. According to Perera, the airline has paid attention to the growing tourism demand from the Middle East. "In January and February 2012 alone, we noticed an increase of 42 percent in arrivals from the Middle East," Perera has said. Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority statistics for this year show that 7,625 tourists arrived from Middle East this year, 42.3 percent increase from the 5,359 arrived during the same period last year. "We do not have statistics from Kuwait, but when we talk about Middle East Kuwait is one of the wealthiest countries in this region. Kuwaitis love to travel, especially during holidays or summer breaks, so I believe the percentage of tourists arriving from Kuwait will be higher," he has remarked. Sri Lanka's national carrier will be operating a total of 47 weekly flights into the Middle East effective next month. Sri Lankan Airlines currently operates to 60 destinations in 33 countries across the globe from Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia to Southeast Asia, the Far East, Australia, North America and Canada.