National carrier, SriLankan Airlines yesterday announced to its customers the changes in flight schedules due to the scheduled maintenance work on the runway of the country’s main international airport at Katunayake.

The changes to its schedule will be made over a three-month period commencing from 06th January 2017 to 06th April 2017, due to the closure of Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport for eight hours a day from 0830 hours to 1630 hours each day for maintenance work on the runway.

The following flights have been cancelled. However, SriLankan will continue to serve each of these destinations through its flights at other times of the day:

• UL308 Colombo-Singapore and UL 309 Singapore-Colombo
• UL127 Colombo-Chennai and UL122 Chennai-Colombo
• UL133 Colombo-Trichy and UL132 Trichy-Colombo
• UL115 Colombo-Male and UL102 Male-Colombo
• UL167 Colombo-Cochin and UL166 Cochin-Colombo
• UL173 Colombo-Bangalore and UL174 Bangalore-Colombo

The following flights have been shifted to alternate times of the day:

• UL868 Colombo-Beijing.
• nUL866 Colombo-Shanghai.
• UL402 Colombo-Bangkok and UL403 Bangkok-Colombo
• UL318 Colombo-Kuala Lumpur and UL319 Kuala Lumpur-Colombo
• UL306 Colombo-Singapore and UL307 Singapore-Colombo
• UL161 Colombo-Trivandrum and UL162 Trivandrum -Colombo
• UL195 Colombo-New Delhi and UL196 New Delhi-Colombo
• UL183 Colombo-Karachi and UL184 Karachi-Colombo
• UL503 Colombo-London and UL504 London-Colombo (From 05th January UL 504 will operate as London-Malé -Colombo)
• UL281 Colombo-Jeddah and UL282 Jeddah-Colombo

Passengers who have already booked tickets on any of the above flights should contact their travel agent or the nearest SriLankan Airlines ticket office for details on revised times and/or alternative routings.

In a statement SriLankan Airlines said it regrets any inconvenience to its passengers caused due to these arrangements that have been made under unavoidable circumstances. “The closure of BIA affects flights of all airlines that operate to BIA during the scheduled time of maintenance work. The airline is not the operator of the airport and has no control over the scheduled maintenance works,” the national carrier added.

Source : http://www.ft.lk/article/564281/Development-Disruption-#sthash.5zkIonea.dpuf