National Kites Festival gets off the ground; event graced by the President

The National Kites Festival 2014 was held in seven locations around the country on Sunday on the theme National unity through social integration.

The main function of the National Kites Festival was held at the Galle Face Green. The event was graced by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The National Kites Festival which is being organised by the Ministry of National Languages and Social Integration is being held in collaboration with News1st, UNDP, UN volunteers and Kites Sri Lanka.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa who arrived at the Galle Face Green joined the national kites festival with Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara.

The public then received the opportunity to take part in the National Kites Festival displaying national unity.

According to the Ministry of National Languages and Social Integration kites have been in Sri Lankan culture for a long period of time and therefore it serves to promote the theme of national unity through social integration.

Another phase of the event allowed individuals to cook and consume various cultural delicacies.

Subject Minister Vasudewa Nanayakkara addressed those gathered at the event.

A cultural show was also held at the event with the aim of promoting social integration.

A national languages stall was set up at the site of the event in-order to create better awareness on the national languages in Sri Lanka.

The National Kite Festival also saw events being held in Batticaloa, Galle, Hambantota, Jaffna, Mannar and Mullaitivu in line with the main event in Colombo.

newsfirst.lk

New office building for CAASL

Civil Aviation Authority is going to construct a new office building at Naikanda, Katunayake. At present the Authority is located in No.04, Hunupitiya Road, Colombo 02 on rent basis.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka was established under the Civil Aviation Authority Act No.34 of 2002 on 27th December 2002.

SriLankan Airlines selects Accelya’s eSmash

SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of Sri Lanka wants to monitor their market share in their key markets across the globe. The airline will use eSmash across Europe, Middle East, Far East and Indian sub-continent, among others to do this job.

SriLankan Airlines have doubled its passenger volume in last 4-years and have aggressive plans to grow their passenger count. With eSmash, SriLankan Airlines will be able to monitor their regional as well as global market share by origin & destination, agent, issue month and class. It will also help the regional and station managers to identify their loyal sales agents and prospective agents.

“SriLankan Airlines has been constantly looking for ways and means to expand its reach globally. In this endeavor, we believe eSmash service will provide us accurate information on the airline’s market share; specifying our strength in our prime markets. Thus, we have decided to use eSmash in all our key markets across the globe”, said Mr. Lal Perera, Head of Worldwide Sales, SriLankan Airlines.

“We are confident that eSmash will provide insights to SriLankan Airlines to support them in their expansion plans and manage their global and regional sales strategy”, said Emmanuel de Lassagne, General Manager – Airline Business Intelligence Solutions, Accelya.

Accelya’s eSmash is the most accurate market share analysis solution for airline station managers and sales teams. It is a web-based solution and provides instant information on airline market share versus the competition, at a few clicks. eSmash enables superior decision-making to improve market share and be more competitive.

Over 120 airlines globally use eSmash to monitor their market share.

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SriLankan Airlines to operate from Terminal 3 at Heathrow

SriLankan Airlines flights to London will operate from Terminal 3 of Heathrow International Airport from July 16, 2014, it was announced here last week.

At present, SriLankan operates from Terminal 4. To announce the change, public notices were placed in all five Terminals at Heathrow in the English, Sinhala and Tamil languages.

island.lk

‘The Sky Gallery’ opens at SLAF base Katunayake

Under the patronage of the Base Commander SLAF Base Katunayake Air Commodore SK Pathirana, The No 26 Regiment Wing took over the challenge to construct “The Sky Gallery” with available recourses at SLAF Base Katunayake to facilitate all personnel and their families to observe the Bandaranayake International Airport and its flight operations. “The Sky Gallery” was declared open by the Base Commander on 3rd July 14 and all Commanding Officers, Officers, Airmen with their families participated in the inauguration ceremony.

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Aviation Awareness Programme at Dudley Senanayake College

A special Aviation Awareness Programme was held at the Dudley Senananayke College premises today. This was organized by the INFOTECHS (Pvt.) Ltd. A lecture on Introduction to Aviation and a model flying show also done by Formy Flyers. Approximately 300 students were participated at the lecture whilst about 1,000 students were participated at the Air Show.

Mr. Susantha Pinto, Chairman of INFOTECHS, Ms. Michelle Pinto, Group General Manager and Ms. Ramya Weerakoon, Vice President – INFOTECHS have participated at this event.

Cinnamon Air celebrates First Anniversary

Cinnamon Air completes its first year of scheduled domestic air services

Cinnamon Air (www.cinnamonair.com), Sri Lanka’s premier domestic airline completes one year of scheduled passenger operations on the 1st of July 2014. The airline, operating in code-share with the National Carrier SriLankan Airlines, conducted its first scheduled domestic flight between the Bandaranaike International Airport and Koggala Lagoon on 1st July 2013 and has grown significantly since then.

During the past year, Cinnamon Air carried over 4000 passengers on 900 scheduled flights to 8 regular destinations and operated over 175 charter flights to 20 destinations. 10 of the destinations served were water aerodromes, making Cinnamon Air the first domestic carrier to commercially serve such a diverse range of inland points in Sri Lanka and the only scheduled airline to do so out of Colombo’s international airport 

Commending Cinnamon Air on its completion of one year of operations, Mr H M C Nimalsiri, Director General of Civil Aviation and CEO of the Civil AviationAuthority of Sri Lanka said, “Airspace above us is a public asset which has vast potential to contribute
in many aspects for the socio economic development of Sri Lanka. With the use of correct equipment, aviation can cater to any community in any part of the island having different needs. Floatplane is one such equipment which does not require dedicated land space but use existing water bodies to connect the affluent tourists and business traffic with remote areas with full of natural beauties where resources are scarce. It enables the flow of wealth, industries and employment to the needy people in such areas with least disturbance to the environment. In that context, the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka wholeheartedly appreciates the very bold initiative and courage shown by Cinnamon Air, Saffron Aviation for investing in the operation of inland floatplane services which is vital part for development of internal air transport network. The Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka wishes them all the success at the time their operations complete one year of eventless operations.”

Commenting on the occasion of the first anniversary of the airline, Ajit Gunewardene, Chairman, Saffron Aviation (owners and operators of Cinnamon Air) and Deputy Chairman of JKH stated that, “The advent of scheduled services by Cinnamon Air has been widely applauded by the trade both locally and internationally, with many of the largest travel companies offering Sri Lanka in Europe and the Middle East featuring Cinnamon Air as an option to their customers. Whilst we are pleased that Cinnamon Air has reached this important milestone with encouraging numbers for a start-up service, we are cognizant of the fact that there is much more to be done to grow the awareness of the product and thereby passenger numbers, in order to achieve the challenging goals that the joint venture partners of Cinnamon Air envisioned at the outset. We look forward to working with all stakeholders locally and internationally towards maintaining this vital offering in the overall tourism infrastructure of Sri Lanka”.

Elaborating on plans for the future, Romesh David, Director, Cinnamon Air said, “the year ahead will see Cinnamon Air continuing to grow its offering with a range of innovative products and some interesting new destinations. This will include the launch of “Cinnamon Air Holidays” a set of unique “fly/drive” tour options covering large swathes of the country in a short period of time, “Explorer’s Pass” for visitors wanting multiple flight options with no restrictions and the creation of a water aerodrome in the beautiful Dutch Bay Lagoon at Kalpitiya to facilitate scheduled and charter flights to the northwest coast of Sri Lanka for the first time”.

All Cinnamon Air scheduled flights operate in code share with SriLankan Airlines, consequent to which they are also be available for sale throughout the SriLankan Airlines network and all Travel Agents around the world via Global Distribution Systems, under a “UL” designated flight number.

Cinnamon Air, owned and operated by Saffron Aviation (Pvt) Limited, is a joint venture between Sri Lanka’s largest listed conglomerate, John Keells Holdings, MMBL Leisure Holdings (a part of the Mercantile Merchant Bank Group) and Phoenix Ventures (parent of Phoenix Industries and the Brandix Group, Sri Lanka’s largest garment manufacturer). The Airline operates a fleet of two Cessna 208 amphibian aircraft and one Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft, with scheduled services to key inland points in Sri Lanka. Cinnamon Air also offers charter services to and between all Airports and Water Aerodromes in Sri Lanka. The Airline is based out of Katunayake where it operates a dedicated domestic terminal (within the precincts of the BIA) and also has its own purpose built hangar and maintenance facilities.

Contact details: – Reservations team, Tel: +94 112475475 or e-mail:
sales@cinnamonair.com or reservations@cinnamonair.com