Colombo , Nov. 23 (AFP) - Sri Lanka’s national airline, SriLankan has improved its punctuality record with more than 95 percent of flights taking off within 15 minutes of the scheduled time, the airline said Thursday.

The airline said it had set up a ‘delays committee’ to improve punctuality after investigating reasons for delays. SriLankan airlines said it wanted to build a new image as an ‘on-time airline’.

The international code "UL" identifying SriLankan airlines has been the butt of jokes among air travellers calling it the "Usually Late" and "Unable to Locate" airline.

Two years ago, the airline had nearly half of its flights delayed, but in October 81 percent of its flights were on time.

"A remarkable 81 percent of flights through the SriLankan airlines system were on time in the month of October, compared to 70 percent during the same month last year.

"The figure for September was 78 percent compared to 68 percent in September of 1999" the airline said in a statement.

Since April 1998, the Sri Lankan national carrier has been 40 percent owned by Dubai’s Emirates aiarline which is also responsible for the complete management of SriLankan.

The airline was earlier known as Air Lanka but the Emirates management changed the name of the carrier to SriLankan.