The shortest international hop into the Maldives. SriLankan Airlines runs daily service on flight UL103, and the leg clocks at around 1 hour 27 minutes — barely a meal service. Other carriers also operate this corridor, with roughly 30 weekly rotations across all airlines.
Why this route works
This is the natural leg of the Sri Lanka + Maldives combo (see our combo guide). Pricing is reasonable, frequency is good, and the plane is in the air just long enough for a coffee and a magazine.
What to know
Connecting from Colombo onward into the Maldives is also viable from continental Europe, Australia, and East Asia — the BIA-MLE leg is short enough that a tight layover often beats a longer Gulf-routing on total elapsed time. Watch the baggage rules though: SriLankan applies its own allowance to the short leg, and a long-haul ticket on a different carrier won't necessarily cover what you bring onto the connection.