Emirates, one of the largest airlines in the world, in the past few weeks has announced a number of network expansions. The middle eastern airline has returned to Rio, Buenos Aires and Taipei over the last 2 weeks. Today we’re talking about the latest update to Emirates’ operations. In this case it’s not a network expansion but a frequency increase. Specifically Emirates is adding a third daily flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka.
About The New Emirates Flight to Colombo
The new flight from Dubai International Airport (DXB) to Colombo (CMB) will start operating on December 1st 2022. Although the Sri Lankan capital was already served by 2 EK daily flights, the Dubai based airline decided to increase its frequency to accomodate growing tourist numbers to the island.
The additional flight will operate under the flight number EK648 on the outbound leg and EK649 on the route back to Dubai. A 777-300ER is the aircraft of choice for this new sector.
Colombo will soon then have 3 daily flights to Dubai which will greatly increase the number of tourist arriving, boosting the local economy. However the operations of this flight do have some quirks.
The Quirks of The Flight Schedule
This additional flight Emirates will soon start operating between Dubai and Colombo has a quite unique schedule. More than unique it will vary a number of times over the coming weeks and months.
Here’s in detail how the operations of EK648/649 will change over time:
- From December 1st to the 15th EK648 will depart Dubai (DXB) at 16:10 and arrive into Colombo (CMB) at 21:55. Return flight, EK649, will depart Colombo at 02:55AM and arrive into Dubai International Airport (DXB) at 05:55
- From December 16th to the 30th EK648 will no longer operate as a direct flight. It will instead operate with a stopover in Male, Maldives. EK648 will depart Dubai at 10:30AM arrive into Male at 14:45, depart Male at 17:15 arriving into colombo at 19:15. Return flight, EK649, will depart Colombo at 02:55AM and arrive into Dubai International Airport (DXB) at 05:55.
The Pre Existing Flights
EK648 will, as previously mentioned above, further increase Emirates’ capacity on the route, already operated with 2 daily flights. These will remain unchanged and are:
- EK652 which regularly stops all year round in Male on its way to Colombo.
- EK650 which instead is the all year round direct flight between the 2 cities.
