Airline focus: SriLankan Airlines

lucasiu — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 18:33:13 GMT

SriLankan Airlines started its life as Air Lanka with 2 leased B707, carried less than 250,000 passengers in its 1st year.

Air Lanka had its 1st A320 entered service in 1992, and hence pave the way to all-Airbus fleet.

Air Lanka, which is renamed to SriLankan Airlines in 1998, introduced Emirates as its strategic partner, which holds 40% share of the carrier and would manage the airline for 10 years. Emirates management brings miracle improvement to the airline especially regarding to inflight service. All its widebody fleet, A330-200 and A340-300, have personal TV for both Business and Economy Class passengers. All Business Class passengers can enjoy AVOD service, even earlier than Cathay Pacific of top class service!

What's more is in SriLankan widebodies ALL passengers can even enjoy in-flight fax service, laptop recharging service, seat-to-seat calling and personal satellite phones, again beating Cathay Pacific. The only drawback is there is no in-inflight internet / email service.

Unfortunately all these good things are not available on A320, so some passengers, like trips to India, Colombo - Bangkok - Hong Kong service. There is even no cabin-wide TV on A320. How good it would be if the services found on widebodies are also found on A320!

And the best of all is all Business Class passengers are guaranteed to get either window or aisle seat because of 6-abreast layout of A330/A340, 4-abreast layout of A320, while Economy Class long haul passengers are no more than 1 seat away from aisles because of 8-abreast layout of A330/A340.

The health of passengers are well concerned, as seen from supply of water for passengers every 45 minutes, better than 60 minutes for most airlines including Cathay Pacific.

No wonder why SriLankan is voted the best airline in Central Asia!

General Aviation

Airline focus: SriLankan Airlines