Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times newspaper is reporting that British Airways will relaunch flights to the country’s largest city Colombo from next year.
According to the report the carrier will fly three times-weekly from Gatwick, routing via Male in the Maldives, with the route starting in March 2013.
BA has yet to confirm the move, and when contacted a spokesperson said that “We have nothing to announce on Colombo”.
The possibility of BA’s return to Colombo was discussed on the Business Traveller forum last year, and a regular poster alerted us to the Sunday Times article this weekend.
The carrier last served the Sri Lankan city around ten years ago – Sri Lankan Airlines is currently the only carrier to serve Colombo with direct, non-stop flights from the UK, with daily flights operating from Heathrow.
Sri Lankan recently announced plans to join the BA-founded Oneworld alliance in late 2013, with Cathay Pacific acting as the carrier’s sponsor (see online news June 11).
Visit ba.com, srilankan.com.
Report by Mark Caswell