Melburnian1
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2013
- Posts
- 25,363
On only its second return trip from Australia, Sir Lankan Airlines UL605 (1655 hours afternoon MEL - CMB, A333 4R-ALQ) took off at 1737 with arrival in the Sri Lankan capital expected at about 2301 hours, 46 minutes late.
This is a well timed flight, allowing businessmen and women to work until say 1330 (assuming they are not more than an hour from Melbourne Airport), check in and be (local time) in a Colombo hotel if all goes well by 0030 or 0100 hours the next day. UL has financial problems and has abolished some routes but chose Melbourne for its Australian foray as it has by far the largest Sri Lankan community in Australia.
Very pleasingly, like AI it is operating daily. This may be risky during the quieter times of the year but one assumes the airline is banking on many passengers making connections in Colombo.
One unwise timetable feature is that the aircraft has a 90 minute timetabled turnaround in Australia. This leaves little or no room for late inbound running if the aim is to get UL605 out on time, as the minimum observed turnaround for an A333 is about 75 minutes. It came in about half an hour late today.
I can vouch for Sri Lanka being a very pleasant place for a holiday, even if its beaches are not quite as scenic as those in say Philippines. Male Sri Lankans love to chat about cricket which many will do as soon as they realise one is not from the USA. It will be interesting to see how much passenger traffic this airline snares from SQ, QF, AI and so on, including passengers bound for or emanating from much more heavily populated India.
This is a well timed flight, allowing businessmen and women to work until say 1330 (assuming they are not more than an hour from Melbourne Airport), check in and be (local time) in a Colombo hotel if all goes well by 0030 or 0100 hours the next day. UL has financial problems and has abolished some routes but chose Melbourne for its Australian foray as it has by far the largest Sri Lankan community in Australia.
Very pleasingly, like AI it is operating daily. This may be risky during the quieter times of the year but one assumes the airline is banking on many passengers making connections in Colombo.
One unwise timetable feature is that the aircraft has a 90 minute timetabled turnaround in Australia. This leaves little or no room for late inbound running if the aim is to get UL605 out on time, as the minimum observed turnaround for an A333 is about 75 minutes. It came in about half an hour late today.
I can vouch for Sri Lanka being a very pleasant place for a holiday, even if its beaches are not quite as scenic as those in say Philippines. Male Sri Lankans love to chat about cricket which many will do as soon as they realise one is not from the USA. It will be interesting to see how much passenger traffic this airline snares from SQ, QF, AI and so on, including passengers bound for or emanating from much more heavily populated India.
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