A few slots held by Jet Airways at Mumbai Airport have been temporarily re-distributed among other airlines. Vistara and AirAsia India were the first to add flights from Mumbai. SpiceJet was next, they added a handful of flights only since they are currently dealing with MAX groundings. Next in line was IndiGo which announced additional flights from Mumbai Terminal 2.

IndiGo further expanded their presence at Mumbai and Delhi Terminal 2 by adding 18 more domestic flights on a temporary basis. Air India has also jumped on to the bandwagon now. Air India announced that they will operate a 5x weekly Mumbai – Colombo flight from May 1, 2019.

The schedule for the 5x weekly flight is,

AI275 BOM2300 – 0130(+1 day)CMB 321 x47
AI276 CMB0230 – 0455BOM 321 x15

The flight is already bookable on Air India’s website.

Jet Airways was the only Indian carrier to offer flights on Mumbai – Colombo route. Jet Airways did operate those flights until it stopped flying internationally altogether. Currently, SriLankan Airlines is the only carrier which operates on the Mumbai – Colombo route with 2 daily flights.

Unlike some carriers, Air India won’t be cancelling existing flights as they have a lot of aircraft grounded for “maintenance”. Good to see, Air India adding at least a single new flight from Mumbai. Let’s hope, it doesn’t end here and Air India does add a few more flights from Mumbai considering Mumbai Terminal 2 is Air India’s fortress now.

With this, only GoAir is left to add new flights from Mumbai using their grounded A320 aircraft or taking delivery of A320neo which is stored.

Will you be taking advantage of Air India’s new flight to Colombo?

Update: Air India has postponed the launch of the new flight to May 31, 2019, in light of the recent terror attacks in SriLanka.