Route brief · ATH → CMB
Athens → Colombo
$518
−17% vs typical
seasonal median $625 · difference $107
Nov 3 – Nov 24 · 21 nights
Air Arabia1 stop
- Usual monthly lows
- $525–$634
- Board rank
- Stronger than 45%
- Route sample
- 5 observed months
Cached fare — the booking search re-prices live before you pay.
Destination briefCMBColomboA working port city that most people leave immediately — for tea country, ruins and the south coast.Best windowDec–MarAirportsBandaranaike (CMB)All routes into ColomboWhen this route gets cheap.
Cached-fare history: across 5 months, Nov is the cheapest for ATH → CMB. Best time to be there: Dec–Mar.
Fares bottom out in November around $518 and peak in July near $885 — a $367 spread across the 5 months we track. The cheapest itinerary we are tracking makes one stop and takes about 9 hours outbound, on a 21-night trip — ticketed under Air Arabia, which on a connecting fare need not operate every leg. At $518 for 6,595 km each way, that works out to about $39 per 1,000 km flown. That is below the $44 typical of long-haul fares here. Across the 15 departure cities we track at a similar distance from Colombo, this fare ranks 6th — 46% above the $355 from Shanghai. That puts it in the cheaper half of the 13 routes of similar length we watch out of Athens, where the middle fare is $745.
The 5 days we hold a cached fare for
Tap a date → live search
The median cached fare across this calendar is 22% lower than when tracking began on Aug 8 — $809 then versus $634 now, across 4 recorded snapshots. This is a calendar-level trend, so an individual deal above can be lower. The lowest single day we have seen here is $518, on Nov 3.
These are the only days we have a cached price for on this route so far — not the only days it flies. The search above covers any date.
Cheapest in Nov · around $518
17% below the $625 typical fare
Cheapest round-trip fare found per month · Athens → Colombo · cached-price history
Route facts
- Airports
- Eleftherios Venizelos (ATH) ↔ Bandaranaike (CMB)
- Flight time
- ~9 hours outbound
- Distance
- ~6,595 km each way
- Typical price
- $625 round-trip (seasonal median)
- Airlines on the board
- Air Arabia
- Itineraries
- Connections on current fares
- Best months to visit
- Dec–Mar
ATH → CMB, answered.
Is $518 a good price for Athens to Colombo?
Only slightly. The seasonal median is around $625 round-trip and this fare is 17% under it, about $107. We do not call a drop notable until 20%, so this is an ordinary price for the route rather than a reason to hurry.
What is the cheapest month to fly from Athens to Colombo?
Across 5 months of cached-fare history, Nov comes out cheapest on this route. The best months to actually be in Colombo are Dec–Mar — when those overlap, that's your window.
How far in advance should I book ATH → Colombo?
We do not publish a number for this, because we cannot measure it yet. Answering it honestly means watching the same departure date on this route over many weeks as it approaches, and that archive is still filling up — so any "book N days ahead" figure here would be borrowed from somewhere else rather than measured. What we can measure is which month is cheap: across 5 months of cached fares, Nov comes out lowest on this route. See /guides/what-moves-a-flight-price/ for what does move a fare.
Are there nonstop flights from Athens to Colombo?
The current cheapest fares involve a connection, ticketed under Air Arabia. Nonstop options exist on many dates at higher prices — check the live search for your exact dates.
Are these prices guaranteed?
No — these are cached fares found on real searches (this one on September 1). Airlines reprice constantly, so the booking search re-checks the live price before you pay. Fresher finds are far more likely to still be available.
Next step
Sleeping in Colombo?
Lock the flight first — then compare stays for Nov 3 – Nov 24 · 21 nights.
Browse hotels ↗
Missed it?
Cached fares expire. This route has a feed of its own — follow it and the next ATH → CMB drop reaches you as soon as we find it.
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