Route brief · SHA → CMB
Shanghai → Colombo
$355
−12% vs typical
seasonal median $405 · difference $50
Nov 9 – Nov 20 · 11 nights
Air China1 stop
- Usual monthly lows
- $389–$485
- Board rank
- Stronger than 28%
- Route sample
- 7 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 7 months, Nov is the cheapest for SHA → CMB. Best time to be there: Dec–Mar.
Fares bottom out in November around $355 and peak in April near $538 — a $183 spread across the 7 months we track. The cheapest itinerary we are tracking makes one stop and takes about 9.5 hours outbound, on a 11-night trip — ticketed under Air China, which on a connecting fare need not operate every leg. At $355 for 5,094 km each way, that works out to about $35 per 1,000 km flown. That is below the $39 typical of medium-haul fares here. Across the 6 departure cities we track at a similar distance from Colombo, this fare ranks 2nd — 0% above the $355 from Guangzhou.
Day-level prices for the next 3 months
Tap any day → live search
The median cached fare across this calendar is 4% lower than when tracking began on Aug 8 — $460 then versus $441 now, across 5 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 $364, on Nov 10.
Cached day-level data for this route is sparse — 12 of 101 days priced, from 47 tracked fares. The days below are shown as found, with no cheapest-day or below-median call.
Cheapest in Nov · around $355
12% below the $405 typical fare
Cheapest round-trip fare found per month · Shanghai → Colombo · cached-price history
Route facts
- Airports
- Pudong (PVG) · Hongqiao (SHA) ↔ Bandaranaike (CMB)
- Flight time
- ~9.5 hours outbound
- Distance
- ~5,094 km each way
- Typical price
- $405 round-trip (seasonal median)
- Airlines on the board
- Air China
- Itineraries
- Connections on current fares
- Best months to visit
- Dec–Mar
SHA → CMB, answered.
Is $355 a good price for Shanghai to Colombo?
Only slightly. The seasonal median is around $405 round-trip and this fare is 12% under it, about $50. 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 Shanghai to Colombo?
Across 7 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 SHA → 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 7 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 Shanghai to Colombo?
The current cheapest fares involve a connection, ticketed under Air China. 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 9 – Nov 20 · 11 nights.
Browse hotels ↗
Missed it?
Cached fares expire. This route has a feed of its own — follow it and the next SHA → CMB drop reaches you as soon as we find it.
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