Sri Lankan Airlines

June 12, 2008 5:01 AM

I'm looking at flights London-Tokyo and Sri Lankan are coming up far far cheaper than anyone else. Should I be concerned about flying with them?

The obvious concern is Tamil Tiger related terrorism. I realise the chances of being personally injured are minimal, but should I be concerned about disruption (I'll be changing planes in Sri Lanka), or of the country collapsing into civil war between now and September? I know nothing about the situation beyond what's on Wikipedia.

Secondly, does anyone have any experience with Sri Lankan? Are they reliable and basically competent as an airline, or am I likely to be messed around

Finally, one of the flight options allows me to leave a day earlier and spend a night in Colombo or wherever (ca. 30 hours between flights). Good idea/bad idea?

(btw, the price difference is enough to determine whether I can afford to go or not. I'm not just looking to save a few quid)

Thanks!

posted by cillit bang to travel & transportation (7 comments total)

FCO Travel Advice for Sri Lanka
posted by jontyjago at 5:38 AM on June 12, 2008

And a couple of airliners.net trip reports on Sri Lankan from the last year or so - might give you an idea of what it's like to fly with them.
posted by jontyjago at 5:47 AM on June 12, 2008

I flew Sri Lankan to Colombo 2 years ago for a wedding in Kandy. At that time, in Kandy, staying with Sri Lankan nationals, concern about terrorism was fairly similar to being in London when the IRA were more active. The groom was much more apprehensive about life in Mile End! Sadly the current situation seems much worse.

Flying Sri Lankan was fine, no different from any other long-haul carrier in terms of delays etc. 2 things to note: we had 8 film channels and choices were mainly Hindi movies (some dubbed into Sinhalese, bits of English only as per usual). The English-language films seem to have been chosen for lack of sex/violence/swearing so we got a kids' film (Nancy Drew) and an indie (I'm Reed Fish). Also food caters for Asian market.
posted by boudicca at 6:21 AM on June 12, 2008

Is the flight actually on Sri Lankan or is it codeshare with another carrier?
posted by nathan_teske at 8:34 AM on June 12, 2008

I flew there from Dubai on Sri Lankan a couple of years back, and the flight was pleasant enough and they seemed relatively reliable. I know a number of people, mostly aid workers, who fly in and out fairly regularly, without undue stress. There was an attack in March 2007 but since then, as far as I know, it has been undisrupted. There is a fullscale war going on in the North, however, although it seems relatively contained. The war is unlikely to get any worse, since it's pretty full-on at present. AFAIK the Tigers are pegged back, and are fighting for the north and east, but certainly not Colombo, although obviously terrorist attacks are possible. For me, Colombo is interesting enough to merit spending a night there, especially if you've never been to Sri Lanka before.
posted by YouRebelScum at 9:02 AM on June 12, 2008

Sri Lankan is part owned by Emirates, which is one of the top airlines (for pasengers) today.

The fact that they include a hotel is, to me, really a nice way to break a double-red-eye-flight journey. Note, though, that they only include the hotel if your layover is between 8 and 24 hours, and if you're on the first flight out to your destination. It looks like, at least on the way there, that the layover would be either 6 or 18 hours.

Connecting to Colombo might also involve a stop in Male (in the Maldives) both from London and to Tokyo...that's a lot of stopping. I plugged in a random date in August because I didn't know when you were going.

On the terrorism thing, if you're only on the ground for a few hours, the risks of anything happening to you and/or directly affecting your flight are infinitesimally small. If anywhere is well-protected, I imagine it's the international airport. Buy some trip insurance and don't worry about it.

Finally: ITA Software for all your flight-ish needs.
posted by mdonley at 11:39 AM on June 12, 2008

I just got back yesterday - the flights were fine, the food was fine, and it was all perfectly ordinary and hassle free. So thanks everyone.

I got some oddball combination of flights through lastminute.com with long layovers, and managed to get the Nightstop service added on at no additional cost by phoning the Sri Lankan office in London, even though I technically didn't qualify (I wasn't on the flights with the closest connections).

It's worth writing a bit about the details of how Nightstop works for future Googlers. The process at the airport is a bit horsedrawn - you have to get a voucher written out at the counter, then go through immigration and customs, then you hand that in at the enquiries counter in the Arrivals lounge where your details are copied onto another voucher, and after while someone turns up to drive you to the hotel, where you hand over that voucher. There only seemed to be a couple of people per flight using it, so don't expect a herd of people to follow.

The two hotels were the Tamarind Tree and the Pegasus Reef, both luxury-ish, clean and perfectly servicable, although maybe not quite as slickly run as you'd get in the west. You get breakfast and lunch/dinner vouchers as appropriate.
posted by cillit bang at 6:16 AM on September 22, 2008