From mid-January 2024, German airline Lufthansa will offer unlimited free messaging on its short- and medium-haul flights. Making the announcement Lufthansa shared that the travellers will then be able to send and receive messages, including photos, on their own smartphone or tablet during the flight on aircraft of the A320 family that have WLAN. The service is free of charge.
For all other Internet packages on board, such as streaming, the tariff will also be reduced by almost 50 per cent from mid-January, it said.
The company reported quarterly profits slightly above analysts’ consensus on the back of robust travel demand this summer. According to the airline group, its total Group revenues increased 8 percent from their prior-year level to EUR 10.3 billion (previous year: EUR 9.5 billion). This made the third quarter the Lufthansa Group’s strongest quarter in its history in revenue terms.
“Lufthansa is investing around two billion euros in product and service improvements. In the process, we have implemented and planned many large, medium, and also smaller initiatives that make travelling with Lufthansa an even better experience,” said Heiko Reitz, CCO Lufthansa Airlines. “One great example is Free Messaging. I am pleased that our guests will in future be able to stay in touch with their relatives or business partners above the clouds – free of charge,” added Reitz.
The prerequisite for using the new free service is logging into FlyNet with a Miles & More service card number or with an e-mail address registered with the Lufthansa Group Travel ID. A new login or registration is also possible during the flight, the airline announced.
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Sri Lanka‘s cabinet approved issuing free tourist visas to visitors from seven countries including China, India and Russia, a statement issued by the media ministry said on October 24, to boost tourism and help revive its crisis-hit economy.
Tourists from China, India, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia will be issued free visas till March 31, 2024 under a pilot programme, the statement detailing cabinet decisions said.
The scheme is part of attempts by Sri Lanka to boost tourism recovery and hit a target of five million arrivals by 2026, the statement added.
India and Sri Lanka have launched an international passenger ferry service after almost 40 years. The service, operated by the government-owned Shipping Corporation of India, runs between Nagapattinam in India and Kankesanthurai in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka. The high-speed craft, Cheriyapani, can carry up to 150 passengers and will make the 60 nautical mile journey in three to four hours.
The Cabinet also proposed to introduce an e-ticketing system for most of the tourist sites in the country in the near future, the ministry said, reported local media. The country of 22 million people, famed for its beaches, ancient temples and aromatic tea, saw its tourism industry pummelled first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by a severe financial crisis last year that saw mass scale protests and shortages of essentials such as fuel.
But the tourism industry is seeing a turnaround in 2023 with Sri Lanka clocking a million arrivals by September, for the first time since 2019. The island is expecting to close the year at 1.5 million arrivals.
India is the largest source of tourists with 200,310 arrivals, followed by Russia with 132,300, latest data from the Sri Lanka Development Authority showed.
Sri Lanka earned USD 1.3 billion from tourism in the first eight months of 2023, up from USD 33 million dollars during the same period last year, according to the central bank.
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