Three charter flights operated by the Polish carrier Enter Air landed at Bandaranaike International Airport within hours of each other on Friday morning, carrying roughly 540 holidaymakers from Poland and opening Sri Lanka’s 2026/2027 European winter season.
The aircraft came from Katowice, Poznan and Warsaw, the Daily Mirror reported, citing the Ministry of Ports and Civil Aviation. All three were Boeing 737s.
NewsFirst reported that each aircraft carried close to 180 people including flight crew, making this one of the largest single-day arrivals of Polish visitors to the island in recent months. The Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau staged a welcome ceremony at the airport with traditional cultural performances.
The programme
The charters are the opening leg of a season-long rotation. Flights from the three Polish cities are scheduled to arrive every 10 days and will run until 2 April 2027, the Ministry said, with 42 flight rotations planned in total.
The Daily Mirror reports that charter services between Poland and Sri Lanka during the European winter have been running for nearly 15 years.
The November-to-April window is Sri Lanka’s main tourism season, coinciding with the European winter. Polish visitors are drawn to the beaches, wildlife parks, hill country and tea estates, with Sigiriya, Dambulla, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Yala among the destinations the Ministry named. The arrivals are expected to feed hotels, transport operators, guides, restaurants and smaller tourism businesses, and to add to foreign exchange earnings.
Where the two accounts differ
The two newsrooms do not agree on the headline number or on the timetable, and this desk is not reconciling them.
The count. The Daily Mirror says “nearly 550” tourists. NewsFirst says “nearly 540” passengers. NewsFirst’s own figure is internally consistent — three aircraft at close to 180 each gives 540 — but it counts flight crew within that 180, which would put the number of actual visitors below 540. The Daily Mirror’s 550 is unexplained by any per-aircraft figure.
The landing times. The Daily Mirror gives 6.51 a.m., 7.40 a.m. and 9.40 a.m. for Katowice, Poznan and Warsaw respectively. NewsFirst gives flight numbers with them: ENT 7607 from Katowice at 7.40 a.m., ENT 1913 from Poznan at 8.25 a.m. and ENT 1561 from Warsaw at 9.40 a.m. The two agree only on Warsaw at 9.40. The 7.40 slot is Katowice in one account and Poznan in the other.
Only NewsFirst publishes flight numbers; only the Daily Mirror attributes its times to the Ministry.
A caution for anyone searching this story
“Polish charter flights arrive in Sri Lanka” is an annual recurring headline, and the previous edition is a close match for this one. A 1 November 2025 report describes two Enter Air Boeing 737s landing with 378 passengers from Katowice and Warsaw, billed then as eight flights a week. The current season is three aircraft, about 540 people, three origin cities including Poznan, and 42 rotations to April 2027.
The flight count, the passenger count and the origin cities are what separate the two. The phrase “Enter Air charter flights to Sri Lanka” does not.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the number of tourists as distinct from total seats occupied, names a tour operator or ground handler, or says how long the visitors will stay or where they will be accommodated. Neither reports the fare, the load factor, or whether the aircraft returned with outbound passengers.
Neither gives the comparable figure for the 2025/2026 season’s rotations, nor Poland’s ranking among Sri Lanka’s source markets, so the scale of any year-on-year increase cannot be stated from these reports. Neither names an official of the Tourism Promotion Bureau or the Ministry as speaking on the record.
On sourcing. Two verified newsrooms filed independently within four hours, agreeing on the carrier, the three origin cities, the airport, the welcome ceremony, the 42 rotations and the April 2027 end date, and differing as set out above. Daily FT, the Island and Ada Derana carried no filing on it that this desk could reach.
