Qatar Airways announces increased air services to Sri Lanka

The Governments of Qatar and the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will allow for more air services between Doha and Colombo.

After a second round of talks between Qatar's Civil Aviation Authority, Qatar Airways and authorities from Sri Lanka, Qatar and Sri Lanka have agreed to increase weekly frequencies from seven to nine flights with any type of aircraft.

The parties have also agreed to allow Qatar Airways to operate sixth freedom rights from Sri Lanka, which will allow Qatar Airways to fly to Colombo and then onto Singapore or Australia.

The parties agreed that if Qatar Airways opted to fly to Australia via Colombo, then the number of frequencies could be increased to ten per week.

"It gives me great pleasure to announce that Qatar Airways now has the option of increasing its services to Colombo," said Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Mr Al Baker.

"Colombo has been an important destination for Qatar Airways and its customers.

"Earlier this year, we took the decision to increase our frequencies from five to seven flights per week to meet the increasing demand for our services.

"This new agreement paves the way for us to increase our services even further for Sri Lanka and the large expatriate Sri Lankan community in the Gulf," said Mr Al Baker.

Qatar Airways is presently implementing an aggressive growth strategy that will see it expand its route network from 38 destinations to 50 destinations by the end of next year. It is also expanding its modern Airbus fleet, it presently operates 21 aircraft, and will increase this to 28 by the end of 2003.