Colombo Airport Self Check In Kiosks Expand For Winter

Published on Nov 23, 2025, 10:32 am CST

7 min read

Key points

SriLankan Airlines is expanding Colombo airport self check in kiosks to customer airlines ahead of the December 2025 winter peak
Twenty new kiosks installed at Bandaranaike International Airport bring the total to 28, with systems built in house by the airline's IT team
Self service already handles about 15 percent of SriLankan's departing passengers and is expected to grow as Singapore Airlines and other carriers join
The kiosks let eligible travelers select seats, print boarding passes and bag tags, then use designated bag drop lanes to bypass main counter queues
Bandaranaike International Airport handles more than 300,000 outbound passengers each month, and Sri Lanka expects over 300,000 tourists in December alone, so digital check in should ease terminal congestion

Impact

Where Impacts Are Most Likely: Expect the biggest changes at check in areas used by SriLankan Airlines and partner carriers in the Bandaranaike International Airport departure hall
Best Times To Travel: Peak evening and late night departures will benefit most from kiosk use, but travelers should still allow extra time during December 2025 and other holiday periods
Onward Travel And Changes: Faster check in should lower the risk of missed connections through Colombo, but bag drop lines and security can still create bottlenecks
What Travelers Should Do Now: Confirm whether your airline is enabled for kiosks, complete online check in when possible, follow kiosk signage on arrival, and keep paper or digital copies of your boarding pass handy
Digital Readiness And Access: Travelers who need special assistance, are traveling with infants, oversized baggage, or complex itineraries may still need to use staffed counters rather than kiosks

Colombo airport self check in is getting a major expansion at Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) as SriLankan Airlines extends its kiosk service to customer airlines ahead of the December 2025 winter tourist surge. The move follows the installation of 20 new machines in the departure terminal, bringing the total number of self service kiosks to 28. With more than 300,000 outbound passengers and over 300,000 expected tourists in December alone, the aim is to pull as many eligible travelers as possible away from traditional check in counters and reduce pressure on the departure hall.

In practical terms, the Colombo airport self check in expansion shifts a growing share of departing traffic at Bandaranaike International Airport onto digital kiosks, which should shorten queues at staffed counters for both SriLankan Airlines and foreign carriers.

Colombo Rolls Out More Self Service Before Peak Season

SriLankan Airlines Airport and Ground Services, which is the sole ground handling provider at Bandaranaike International Airport, has confirmed that the enhanced kiosk network will be available not only to its own passengers but also to customer airlines whose travelers account for about 60 percent of all passengers the company handles. The airline says it installed 20 additional kiosks in the departure terminal in October, raising the total from 8 to 28, with the software developed in house by its IT team as part of a wider digitalization push.

The self check in program has been running at Bandaranaike since 2023 and has already seen steady adoption. Around 15 percent of SriLankan Airlines departing passengers at Colombo are using the kiosks, a share that is expected to climb as more carriers plug into the system and as winter traffic builds. SriLankan reports that average monthly departing passenger volumes through Colombo are already above 300,000, so diverting even a modest fraction of those travelers into automated flows can materially ease congestion at peak hours.

Singapore Airlines will be the first foreign carrier to adopt the kiosk service for its passengers flying from Colombo, with integration for other customer airlines planned in the coming months. That means the first wave of international travelers to see the difference will likely be those on busy South East Asia and long haul connections where check in counters have historically seen heavy pressure during evening and night bank departures.

How The New Kiosks Work

The Colombo self check in kiosks are designed to handle most of the standard departure flow without a face to face interaction. Eligible travelers can select their airline and flight, verify their booking, choose or confirm seats, and print boarding passes directly from the machine. For passengers traveling with checked baggage, the kiosk also prints bag tags, which they can attach themselves before proceeding to a designated bag drop lane.

This structure follows the same pattern seen at many larger hubs worldwide. The kiosk performs the administrative steps, and the staffed point at bag drop becomes a shorter interaction focused on verifying identity, checking baggage rules, and accepting the bags, rather than processing the full check in. For travelers who have already completed online check in on their airline app, the kiosk can act as a convenient boarding pass and bag tag printer in case they prefer a paper backup or need tags for checked bags.

Not every traveler will be able to use the kiosks. Those with special service requests, unaccompanied minors, some paper visas, group bookings, or complex itineraries, as well as passengers carrying oversized or special baggage, may still be directed to staffed counters. The airport operator and SriLankan Airlines have not published a full list of excluded categories, so travelers with unusual needs should still plan on using a conventional check in desk and allow extra time.

Why Colombo Is Pushing Digital Check In

Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport is Sri Lanka's main international gateway and the primary hub for SriLankan Airlines, handling millions of passengers a year on regional and long haul routes. The airport sits north of Colombo in Katunayake and remains central to the country's tourism recovery, which has accelerated in 2024 and 2025 after sharp declines around the Easter bombings, the pandemic, and the recent economic crisis.

Official tourist arrival data show that Sri Lanka welcomed about 248,592 visitors in December 2024, and monthly arrivals through 2025 have been running well ahead of 2024 levels, with double digit percentage growth in most months. The country recently marked its two millionth tourist arrival of the year and is working toward a lower scenario target of around 2.415 million visitors in 2025 while national leaders talk about longer term ambitions of reaching three million tourists a year.

That tourism growth is part of a broader economic recovery, and the government has tied infrastructure upgrades at Bandaranaike and other gateways to its efforts to attract higher spending visitors. Automation at check in is a relatively low cost way to squeeze more capacity out of existing terminals while bigger capital projects, such as the new international terminal building at Colombo, move forward more slowly.

What This Means For Your Trip Through Colombo

For most point to point leisure travelers using SriLankan Airlines or Singapore Airlines, the immediate impact will be visible at the departure hall. Instead of a single long queue at airline counters, travelers on participating flights should see clusters of self service kiosks near the main check in zones, plus clearly marked bag drop positions where they can hand over tagged baggage. In best case scenarios, passengers traveling with hand baggage only can complete formalities at a kiosk and proceed directly to security.

The biggest benefit will be felt during the evening and late night periods when departures to the Middle East, Europe, and parts of Asia create a heavy outbound wave, particularly in December and January. Kiosks can shorten individual interactions, which multiplies into shorter lines when thousands of travelers are trying to clear check in within the same two to three hour window before flights. Business travelers and frequent flyers who are comfortable with airline apps will likely adopt the kiosks quickly, further reducing load on counters that can then focus on families, groups, and passengers who need more help.

That said, travelers should not assume that self check in alone will remove all bottlenecks. Security screening and immigration queues at Colombo can still build during peaks, especially when multiple wide body aircraft depart close together. Bag drop lines may also back up if many passengers arrive with checked baggage at the same time. Practical planning still means arriving early for winter flights, particularly on the key holiday travel days when tourist arrivals spike and outbound flights are full.

From a connection standpoint, smoother flows at check in may reduce the risk of misconnects for passengers starting their journeys in Colombo, especially on itineraries that combine a SriLankan Airlines segment with a partner airline. Travelers arriving on inbound flights who remain airside and are already checked through are less affected by the kiosk rollout, although the overall reduction in landside congestion can still help airport operations.

Background: Bandaranaike International Airport And Sri Lanka Tourism

Bandaranaike International Airport opened in the 1960s and has grown into a multi terminal facility that handles nearly all of Sri Lanka's scheduled international traffic. Passenger numbers peaked at close to 10.8 million in 2018, fell sharply during the pandemic, and have been climbing back, with authorities expecting traffic to recover to pre crisis levels around 2024 and 2025. As the main gateway, Bandaranaike carries much of the burden of the government's tourism growth strategy and of airlines' efforts to rebuild networks.

The push for self check in at Colombo sits alongside other digital and physical upgrades, including expansion projects at the airport and policy changes such as visa facilitation moves designed to make it easier for visitors from key markets to enter Sri Lanka. For travelers, the immediate takeaway is simple. If your airline offers kiosk or online self check in at Colombo, using those tools can save time at the airport and give you more control over seat selection and boarding documents, especially during the busy December 2025 winter season.