Air Seychelles, the State-owned national flag carrier for the Indian Ocean archipelagic country, has announced that it will institute a new international service in late June, between its home base of Mahe, and Colombo in Sri Lanka. The carrier also reported that it will shortly conclude a partnership with Sri Lankan Airlines.

“We’re very excited about this opportunity to link Seychelles with Sri Lanka,” enthused Air Seychelles chief commercial officer Charles Johnson. “A destination in its own right with excellent tourist, medical and trading opportunities which all Seychellois will benefit from. In addition, our upcoming partnership with Sri Lankan Airlines will allow travellers to purchase a single ticket for travel beyond Colombo to other destinations in Asia.”

The service will be operated twice a week, starting on June 20. The flights from Mahe to Colombo will be coded HM 262 and be operated on Tuesday and Saturday nights. The return flights will be operated on Wednesday and Sunday mornings and coded HM 263.

Air Seychelles will operate the service with its Airbus A320neo airliners. These are configured to carry 12 business class and 156 economy class passengers.

The partnership with Sri Lankan Airlines will give Air Seychelles passengers access to more than 20 destinations across Asia and Australasia. These will include Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo, as well as various destinations in India and Bangladesh.

“This new destination [Colombo] will reinforce our regional service and provide enhanced connectivity to the south-east Asia region and beyond,” highlighted Air Seychelles acting CEO Sandy Benoiton. “This is a high-potential market and we look forward to see what lies ahead.”

The Seychellois airline already operates international services to Johannesburg, Mauritius, Mumbai in India, and Tel Aviv in Israel, all with its A320neos. It also operates scheduled domestic services, with up to 30 roundtrips each day between Mahe and Praslin, which is the second largest island in the Seychelles, as well as charter flights to other islands in the archipelago.

Its fleet is composed of two A320neo-200s and five 19-passenger twin-turboprop De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 400 aircraft.