Feb 03, Colombo: Turkey's flag carrier Turkish Airlines for the first time launched its services to Sri Lanka's Colombo International Airport from Istanbul starting this month.

The Airline has extended its current services of 5 flights in a week to Male in Maldives to Colombo's Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) from 1st of February.

Turkish Airlines plans to operate from Colombo on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, arriving at 1510 local time (LT) and departure; the same day at 2140 LT; arrival in Istanbul the next day at 0545 LT. The initial flights will operate as Istanbul/Male/Colombo/Male/Istanbul.

Pership Holidays is the appointed GSA for Turkish Airlines in Sri Lanka.

The airline plans to reduce the operation to 4 weekly flights from March 31, 2013. However, the flights will be operated on an Airbus A340-300 which can carry about 100 more passengers than the currently used A330-200.