I had originally planned this adventure for sometime in 2015 at which time Sri Lankan Airlines would have been a One World member so I could have gotten the Bangalore – Colombo route for 4500 Avios. Since I brought the trip forward, I would have to buy tickets since I couldn’t use miles for this route.
After checking all the local airlines, SpiceJet came in the cheapest but we would have to transfer in Chennai.
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You can easily book this ticket online and pay with a foreign credit card – unlike buses & trains which require you to jump through hoops!
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The YQ is way more than the base fare but I couldn’t find a way to fuel dump it!
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Since the entire ticket only comes to around $85 I wasn’t going to lose sleep over it!
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The one drawback was a 5 hour layover in Chennai from 7pm – 1am and there is nothing near the airport to do at that time of night. The aircraft is a smaller one and our carry-on backpacks barely fit in the overheads which was annoying but no one challenged us or made us gate check them.
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The one advantage was that the seats were 2 x 2 so we didn’t have to share a bank of 3 with a stranger. The crew were very friendly and a snack and soft drink were offered to everyone. Of course you can’t compare to Singapore or Cathay Pacific but for a low-cost carrier, I thought they were pretty good! Both legs departed and arrived right on time.
Laying over in Chennai was a pita. There was nothing to do but sit and wait. I did have some Kindle books on my netbook, my husband people-watched and dozed off. They won’t let you check in until 3 hours before the flight. Chennai does have some nice artwork in the terminal.
These little shuttle carts will take you from the arrivals terminal to international departures for free but they do expect a tip.
For once I was hoping for a delay as I really didn’t like arriving in Colombo at 2:20am but the flight was right on time! Since we had only carry-ons we were off the plane in no time waving goodbye to the friendly crew!
