Known for everything from its tea fields and cricket to the famous scenic train from Colombo to Kandy, the Southeast Asian nation of Sri Lanka has in recent years emerged as a particularly popular tourist destination for travelers from Europe.
The 279,328 international tourists who came to the country in February 2026 marked a 16.3% increase from the previous year while the biggest numbers of visitors came from the United Kingdom, Russia and Germany in that order.
In response to demand from tourists as well as members of the diaspora living in the United Kingdom, British flag carrier British Airways announced a new route between London Gatwick (LGW) and Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) that will start running in October 2026.
British Airways to launch new flights to Melbourne and Colombo from London
The flight will run three times a week seasonally alongside a new year-round route between London Heathrow (LHR) and Melbourne International (MEL) starting in January 2027 (due to the distance between England and Australia, the flight will be run as a fifth-freedom flight with a stopover in Kuala Lumpur).
The London-Melbourne route will depart at 9:10 p.m. to arrive in Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) at 6:05 p.m. the following day. After seeing some passengers disembark and picking up others, the second section of the route will depart at 7:45 p.m. and arrive in Melbourne International at 6:40 a.m. for a total of two days in transit due to time zones.
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The return flight to London Heathrow will leave Melbourne at 4:35 p.m. and arrive back to the United Kingdom at 5:20 a.m. the following day. The Colombo flight will take just over 10 hours and depart at 5:30 p.m. to arrive at 9 a.m. local time.
British Airways is also expanding service to a number of cities in the Western Hemisphere, including Caribbean destinations like Barbados, St. Lucia and Costa Rica. For its U.S. network, British Airways will make its seasonal summer flight between London Heathrow and Baltimore daily as well as increase frequencies to New Orleans and Houston to a respective four and 12 times per week.
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“Two notable new destinations”: British Airways on new routes
“We are delighted to announce sizable growth to our flying schedule for winter 2026, including two notable new destinations, that I am confident will prove popular with our customers,” British Airways’ Chief Planning and Strategy Officer Neil Chernoff said in a statement on the new routes while also adding that they “represent a significant investment in our long-haul leisure network.’
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As of 2026, there are no direct flights between Sri Lanka and the U.S. — American tourists coming to the country usually transfer in an Asian or Middle Eastern city on the way over. European airlines such as Air France, KLM and Lufthansa also run routes from their capital cities to Colombo while British Airways previously had not but now joins their ranks with a new destination.
The airline currently runs an average of 52 flights per week to Indian cities such as Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai among others.
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