Great1 stop · 12.5h
SAO to JNBSouth Africa
Johannesburg
$593
usually $885
−33%
Most monthly lows $771–$885. Cheaper than every other month on record (3).
Flights · SAO → CMB
São Paulo to Colombo
Best fare, round trip
$2,197
Too little price history on this route to compare — the fare is shown as found.
Found
- Depart
- Sat 19 Dec
- Return
- Mon 15 Feb
- Stay
- 58 nights
- Flight
- 2 stops · 20.5h
- Airline
Ethiopian
Cached fare — the booking search re-prices live before you pay.
Sri LankaColomboA working port city that most people leave immediately — for tea country, ruins and the south coast.Best windowDec–MarAirportsBandaranaike (CMB)Every route into ColomboFare seasonality
When this route gets cheap.
The cheapest itinerary we are tracking makes 2 stops and takes about 20.5 hours outbound, on a 58-night trip — ticketed under Ethiopian, which on a connecting fare need not operate every leg. At $2,197 for 14,022 km each way, that works out to about $78 per 1,000 km flown. That is above the $42 per 1,000 km typical of ultra-long-haul fares here. Across the 9 departure cities we track at a similar distance from Colombo, this fare ranks 7th — 2.8× the $774 we hold from Toronto. For context, the middle fare among the 26 routes of similar length we watch out of São Paulo is $1,538. We have 1 month of cached prices for this route so far — not enough to call a fare cheap or expensive, so we publish the price without a percentage. Fare history here is still too short to name a cheap season. The best time to be in Colombo: Dec–Mar.
The one day we hold a cached fare for
Press a date to compare its fares
The median cached fare across this calendar is 37% higher than when tracking began on 8 Aug — $1,607 then versus $2,197 now, across 12 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 $1,579, on 10 Nov.
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.
Cached fares · checked 13 Oct 2026
We are still collecting this route's months — 1 month of cached prices so far, too few to chart.
Route facts
- Airports
- Guarulhos (GRU) · Congonhas (CGH) · Viracopos (VCP) ↔ Bandaranaike (CMB)
- Flight time
- ≈20.5 hours outbound
- Distance
- ≈14,022 km each way
- Airlines on the board
- Ethiopian
- Itineraries
- Connections on current fares
- Best months to visit
- Dec–Mar
Good to know
SAO → CMB, answered.
How far in advance should I book SAO → 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. Our guide Why flight prices change covers the levers we can measure.
Are there nonstop flights from São Paulo to Colombo?
The current cheapest fares involve a connection, ticketed under Ethiopian. We hold no nonstop fare on this route right now, which does not mean none flies — search your exact dates to see what does.
Are these prices guaranteed?
No — these are cached fares found on real searches (this one on 13 October). 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 19 Dec – 15 Feb '27 · 58 nights.
Browse hotelsMissed it?
Cached fares expire. This route has a feed of its own — follow it and the next SAO → CMB drop reaches you as soon as we find it.
Follow this route’s feedKeep browsing
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