Heralding a new era in aviation and tourism between the two neighbouring countries, India’s national carrier Air India launched a direct, nonstop flight on the Colombo-Delhi-Colombo route.

Flight AI 276 from Colombo will depart for Delhi at 0820 hours, arriving Delhi at 1205 hours. The return flight AI 275 from Delhi will leave at 1200 hours and reach Colombo at 1535 hours except on Wednesdays when the flight will leave Delhi at 1330 hours and reach Colombo at 1715 hours.

Speaking at the press briefing Air India Commercial Director Pankaj Srivastava said, “This is going to be a daily flight. Every day there’s same time departure except on Wednesdays where due to operational reasons we have to reschedule the departure from Delhi by an hour and a half.”

Delhi being the hub for Air India, will provide passengers from Sri Lanka, connections to flights of Air India and other Star Alliance member airlines to Europe, the USA, Far East and Australia. Likewise, passengers arriving from these international destinations will get a convenient connection to Sri Lanka on this new flight.

“We are very happy to announce this particular connection is made in a such a way the passengers from Colombo can actually use the Delhi hub and connect on to most of the European flights because most of the Europeans flights to Delhi operate only in the afternoon and this flight arrives in Delhi at around 12 noon, which provides connection to all the European destinations and likewise all the European flights are coming to Delhi in the morning and that will provide connection to these flights to Colombo,” he added.