Flydubai announces plans to resume flights to Colombo

COLOMBO: Leading carriers from the Middle East including global giant Emirates are stepping up flights to Colombo following the opening of borders and resumption of international tourism in Sri Lanka late last month.

Emirates announced it would increase its services to Colombo from four to six weekly flights – with a fifth weekly flight commencing Feb. 18 (every Thursday) and a sixth weekly flight commencing Feb. 27 (every Saturday).

The two additional services will serve market demand and offer customers enhanced connectivity to/from Colombo, via Dubai.

The added services will operate every Thursday and Saturday. Emirates flight EK650 will depart Dubai at 0235hrs and arrive in Colombo 0825hrs local time. The return flight EK651 will depart Colombo at 0955hrs and arrive in Dubai at 1300hrs, local time.

Separately, Flydubai announced plans to resume flights to Colombo, Sri Lanka, with a twice-weekly service starting from Feb. 17.

The carrier will operate flights between Terminal 2, Dubai International (DXB) and Colombo International Airport (CMB).

“We are pleased to restart our operations to Colombo, and we look forward to launching more flights to strengthen our reach in the Subcontinent,” Flydubai Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations (UAE, GCC, Africa and the Indian Subcontinent) Sudhir Sreedharan said.

Gulf Air, the national carrier of Bahrain, said it will resume its direct operations to and from Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport with two weekly flights, starting from 15 February, on its new Airbus A320neo aircraft.

Gulf Air has been operating direct flights between the Bahrain and Sri Lanka since 1981 and it is one of the airline’s main destinations in the Indian Sub-continent region.