SriLankan plans to sell Indian Railways' inventory at Colombo

New Delhi: SriLankan Airlines plans to sell Indian Railways' inventory to India-bound passengers at Colombo Airport, initially for routes out of Delhi and subsequently for most or all of the 11 destinations that the airline flies to in India, with a current total of 99 flights. The airline, which has check-in counters for its flights at railway stations in Belgium, is currently in discussion with Indian Railways for having a precisely opposite arrangement whereby it will offer passengers the facility to book Indian Railways' tickets, according to Dimuthu Tennakoon, Manager - Maharashtra and Gujarat, SriLankan Airlines. He added, "Delhi is the first destination for which this arrangement will be implemented but a similar arrangement for South Indian destinations is also very likely since a lot of our India-bound passengers flying in from Colombo opt for flights to Chennai and Hyderabad and then travel up north by train."
While international airlines have interline agreements with most Indian domestic carriers for onward connections and feeder services to and from destinations that the former don't fly to, SriLankan Airlines' arrangement with Indian Railways, when it materialises, will be an undeniable precedent and may open the avenue for similar tie-ups between Indian Railways and other carriers.
19/11/07 Bhisham Mansukhani/TravelBizMonitor

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Categories: Foreign Nov 2007, New Nov 2007