Colombo to be new hub to fly from Chennai to Australia

TNN | Updated: Nov 19, 2017, 06:07 IST



 CHENNAI: Travellers headed to Australia now have one more hub to transit from Chennai as Sri Lankan Airlines has launched Colombo-Melbourne flights with convenient connection from Chennai, Kochi, Coimbatore, Trichy in south India.

The stopover at Colombo airport is one and a half hours and the total travel time including transit is 13 hours.

As the route from Chennai to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, one of the biggest transit hubs for international travel, is getting saturated, the new hub which has opened up will be convenient for travellers from Chennai as there are no direct flights from Chennai to Australian cities.

People now fly via Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Dubai and Abu Dhabi which offers flights to Melbourne and Sydney with travel time ranging between 13 hours to 19 hours including layover at transit airports.

Catering to the demand for travel to Australia from Chennai, Etihad Airways offer a connection to Melbourne via Abu Dhabi with a layover of one and a half hours with a total travel time of 19 hours which is just two hours more than the total travel time of Singapore Airlines via Changi Airport in Singapore.

Sri Lankan also operates one-stop twice-daily services between Sri Lanka and Australia with its code share partners Qantas and Malaysia Airlines.

Metro Travels said, " Though airlines based in the Middle East offer good connection via Abu Dhabi and Dubai, most of the people do not prefer to spend flying four hours to the Middle East to board connecting flights to Australia. People fly this way because options are fewer."