S7 Airlines will launch service to Sri Lanka during the Northern winter 2026/27 season, opening a twice-weekly Novosibirsk to Colombo route from December 20, 2026.
The airline announced the new service in a schedule filing published on August 27, 2026. Airbus A320 aircraft are to operate the route.
Flight S75809 departs Novosibirsk at 05:00 arriving in Colombo at 13:40 on day 7, and at 05:15 arriving at 13:40 on day 4. The return, S75810, leaves Colombo at 14:50 and arrives back in Novosibirsk at 02:15 the following morning on days 4 and 7.
The timings describe a long day for a narrowbody. A block time approaching nine hours outbound places this among the more demanding A320 sectors filed anywhere in the world, and it reflects a wider pattern in the Russian market, where single-aisle aircraft are routinely used on stage lengths that would attract a widebody elsewhere.
Novosibirsk is the natural place for this kind of route to originate. Russia's third-largest city and the principal hub of Siberia, it is S7's home base and the airline's main connecting point for traffic moving between the Russian Far East, the Urals and destinations to the south. Building a leisure route from Novosibirsk rather than Moscow means the airline can feed it from a catchment that has comparatively few nonstop options to warm-weather destinations.
Colombo, meanwhile, sits in the middle of the northern winter high season. Sri Lanka's peak tourist period runs from December to March on the island's west and south coasts, which lines the route's December 20 start date up precisely with the beginning of that window. A twice-weekly frequency is a measured way to enter a seasonal leisure market: it is enough to establish a presence and test demand, but small enough that the capacity can be withdrawn without significant disruption if bookings disappoint.
Sri Lanka has been actively courting new long-haul leisure traffic as its tourism sector rebuilds, and routes from secondary origin cities are an increasingly common part of that strategy. Rather than competing for slots and passengers at the largest European and Middle Eastern gateways, the island's tourist board has benefited from carriers connecting it directly to regional catchments that previously required one or two connections.
The early morning departure and overnight return are typical of a leisure charter-style rotation. Passengers leave Novosibirsk before dawn and land in Colombo in the early afternoon, giving a usable first day, while the return arrives back in Siberia in the small hours, allowing the aircraft to be back in the domestic network by the following morning. It is an efficient use of a single airframe on a route that would otherwise tie one up for the better part of two days.
The service is currently filed through the Northern winter 2026/27 season.
Sources: AeroRoutes. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Elena Vargas.
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