Sri Lanka Aviation

Thanks Aaqib.. thats a bit of a sad news... flying HRI stopped within few months of starting :S

SriLankan Airlines will become a full member of the global airline alliance, oneworld in early 2014, it has been announced. According to oneworld, SriLankan Airlines is the first airline from the Indian subcontinent to join any global alliance. SriLankan Airlines operates a fleet of 21 aircraft from its Colombo base and flies to 64 destinations in 34 countries in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Far East, North America, Australia and Africa, including the Oneworld hubs of Hong Kong, London Heathrow, Moscow Domodedovo and Tokyo Narita. (Colombo page)

Is that true 4R-ADA ready to fly again? few pictures from Amitha.

Fingers Crossed!!! Hope to see her in the sky

* BEGIN OF A RANT *This is ridiculous.

SriLankan continuously says it flies to 64 destinations in 34 countries, and this is inaccurate. It has never flown to more than 40 destinations (I think it's even less than this), even at it's peak. No airline, how much they code-share include these in their destination list. They continuously swipe off of other airlines and claim to be world-class. When they join OneWorld, and till they do, they will continuously repeat this like eager parrots, instead of literally improving the financial, and service situation of the airline. I DON'T CARE UL, I'VE HEARD ABOUT YOU GUYS JOINING ONEWORLD A MILLION TIMES THROUGH ALL THE LOCAL NEWS, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, FORUMS, ADS. Where is ANY information about the lounge being refurbished? How about economy class getting new seats/tvs? Improving your catering (had the most appalling meals when I flew them in July)

They can't even provide an actual date of joining OneWorld, when other airlines joining like Qatar (30 October 2013) and TAM (31 March 2014) have released official dates aaaages before. This is because they are sure, understand the idea of a timeline, and not continuously delaying things. I know this is a rant, but a rant of someone who has loved UL for so many years, and having flown it at least once a year for the past 18 years has seen a continuous decline, regardless of their "fleet refurbishments and improvements". A lie-flat seat, and new uniforms while a good change, is the only thing they have been able to do in the past two to three years in terms of "improving". Most airlines roll more than that out at once. Additionally, why spend money on this when you should instead cut staff numbers from an overstaffed company, and spend said money on TRAINING them to an even higher level, raising motivation, morale.

And about Mihin. WHY the 737s? WHY MIHIN AT ALL? I fly on their Dhaka-Colombo flights a couple of times a year, and they are basically a full service airline.. Their meals on those flights were.. LEGIT! Better than the meals of all the short-haul UL flights I've had this year. And that's not saying much. They charge $600 for a two and a half hour flight to Bangladesh.. That's definitely not low-cost.

*RANT OVER* Sorry guys, I had a lot of to say, and being a silent observer of this forum, finally came out and said it all

Get your sh*t together, the aviation sector of Sri Lanka!

64 destinations including code-shares!!!!!

P.S. : Mihin's Colombo-Dhaka flight is 3h 15min

3h 15 min is the scheduled time... can take less time, I'm sure it was about 2 hours 45 when I flew that route.

Any update on Jetstar?

4R-ADA is on sky today as ALK1, check on flightradar24.com

Agree with a lot of what you have to say, now they are launching CMB-SEZ claiming that it will cut the flight time to Africa by 3 hours, by connections using Air Seychelles I assume. Why not launch to Nairobi?? That's a much bigger hub!

Flew UL a few months ago and it was rubbish. Was on J from FRA-CMB on their flatbeds which is a nice hard product but soft product was rubbish. Service was not the gold UL standard that used to be trademark, food was awful, didn't have any spoons! And they are charging similar prices to QR, I mean how can you compare the two??

Very sad to see how far UL has come down to be honest. I had another leg CMB-DXB in Y, good god I will never travel UL Y until there is a significant improvement. There are plenty of other options which offer far better quality for a small amount more.

Listen some of your points are right but I make You an example...Alitalia didin't refurbish all their aircraft at once...things must be done slowly....in some of the QR flights there is still no PTV!!! Of course there are a loto of things to do but don't put this airlines in such a shit!

So how is Alitalia doing?

Jeez!! Are we comparing UL with AZ now! That is a new LOW even for UL.

guys personally speaking, its not just UL which has a run down in services, when i was in SL this summer, most service sector businesses standards have gone down. while living in DXB one expect SL (a great holiday destination) to match up, BUT the reason for the run down is that UL's financial situation is not so good, and neither is the SL economy doing great either, hence the working crowd has a don't care attitude (demotivated), this is one of the major causes for the chaotic motorists in CMB streets. if u look at BA once upon a time a legendary airline, have gone down coz of financial losses and UK economy being rubbish.

the reason EK/EY/QR/WY are performing so well with superior service standards is becoz home economies are growing plus airlines are performing better hence a motivated staff. all we need to expect is for UL financial's to improve (which will - coz i remember 2 fiscal yrs ago it did improve and those days although the hard product wasn't so great, the soft product was but once the hard product improved compared to before the soft product went down becoz of losses increasing) to see their service standards to be well off in every flight coz now UL is having a lot of inconsistencies.

Sorry mate, but AZ is truly awful, my company's travel policy does not even allow AZ flights anymore. So let's not aspire to that, let's aspire to something better. Case in point... Garuda used to rubbish and they have really turned it around. Garuda's first class product is really fantastic.

QR short haul has no PTV, I personally do not have a problem with that. On the subject of inflight entertainment long-haul UL is still behind

I will continue to shit on UL as long as they are... just that, shit. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of UL of the past, the legendary service... just hoping that this will come around again soon!