Review: SriLankan Airlines Business Class A330 Tokyo To Colombo

A month after the last installment. Right on time for your standards these days

Yes, it is unusual to have only two pilots when the block time is over 9 hours. The US FAR 117’s require an additional pilot(s) on anything over 8 or 9 depending on the report time.

Yep I agree with Trev. The gap between trip reports is astonishingly slow..

Great review Ben (as usual). I hate to think to what this airline will look like in a year after having lost of most of its tourism business.

@Ben - Great review! Regarding the "reach across" service, I kinda get it as someone who flies with his wife on most international trips and sits in the middle. By reaching over you are at least at the same stages of the dining process or both getting your glasses topped-up at the same time. On some flights one of us will get the "fast aisle" and will be a course ahead pretty much the entire meal with topped-up glasses throughout while the other is lagging behind and staring at an empty glass and an uncleared plates. The "fast aisle" isn't always the FAs fault, sometime's it's the needy or indecisive or rude PAX in the aisle slowing them down.

No tea :/

I don't really know why, but UL has the best tea in the air. I am always excited, even in Y, to have their tea.

so...related topic, but would ya'll say its safe to visit Colombo in a couple weeks? We're scheduled to get there after a few days in Maldives, but with all Easter tragedy, not sure what to expect in terms of road closures/curfews/general atmosphere?

@mark there's little to no road closures and no more curfew. In terms of general atmosphere the country is on high alert security wise especially in Colombo. This means the vehicle you're traveling in may be stopped for a security inspection and most malls etc will check you with a security wand & inspect your bag before letting you in.

@trev and @jack, I know I've been waiting for this too! But perhaps Lucky was trying to get a little distance between the terrorist attack and the reviews? It seems distasteful to have a review a few days after such a terrible incident.

Anyway, thank you for the review! I personally found it funny how she joked about the wine (maybe cause I'm Australian and this is normal humour for us). However, I also get it wouldn't be funny for everyone and might be a little risky to perform unless you really knew your customer.

@trev - are you that thick you can’t think why that delay might be?

@Lucky, What is the airline's logo? I was thinking it was a chile pepper, now I'm thinking some sort of bird?

@Gibbo @Dennis the terrorist attack happened on Easter which was at the end of the month, the previous installment was published April 5, which is nearly three weeks before the terrorist attacks. He could not have published it in three weeks after that?

Even so, he has been ridiculously slow to post trip reports. I understand not traveling as much (kinda) but does that not mean he should have more time to write these?

Sorry Lucky, I love the page, but you have got to speed things up a bit

Whatever the issues with the service, I really liked the menu options! Great sounding Japanese and Indian options.

@ Trev -- Ben has actually been traveling almost every day in April, which is why there have been 32 posts about his other flights, hotels, and general travel experiences since the previous installment of this series was published April 5th. He likes to share some of what he's doing in realish-time, which is why the series always come later. We ran the first half of my Vietnam trip as well during that timeframe, which was another 10 review posts.

So there was more than one review per day in April, along with 216 other posts, which I think is pretty dang speedy for a site that effectively has like 1.2 people writing!

We know people love the report series (and we do too!), but they take a tremendous amount of time, which is especially hard to come by when traveling. We absolutely appreciate both your enthusiasm and your patience, and will continue doing what we can to keep a consistent mix of content. 🙂

Glad you liked the IFE system... It's not one of our better ones...

As you were sitting together in the centre aisle, did you hold hands for the flight?

Are those sweaty plastic ("pleather") cheap seat coverings? In Asia?? I wouldn't fly them just for that -- they obviously don't care for passenger comfort.

Just a thought, not a criticism...

Responding poorly (or disinterested) to the FA joke could have impaired your service

It is difficult to be witty/funny/interesting in a second language

The FA May have tried with the bad wine joke, saw your reaction, and thought “oh, he is a serious person. I should be formal.”

This can chill service.

I was recently on a flight where I had fantastic service. Others complained about the same FA.

I think it’s because I was amiable and friendly immediately upon boarding. My travel compadres were frazzled.

Not saying my thoughts have anything to do with your service, nor that it it’s ok to give preferential service... but I’ve found that a genuine smile goes a long way

@tiffany - maybe cutting down on the repetitive credit card posts or the trivial news posts where Ben just uploads GIFs from TV soaps may help speed up the delivery of the posts we actually want to read

@ Michael F
A significant part of their business is transit/connecting passengers. One would expect them to respond to the inbound tourism decline by ramping up marketing for those who never set foot in the country: eg, SE and E Asia to/from Europe, plus Australia/Europe/Asia.
As for the airline experience: when J fares are only about 60% of those demanded by more highly rated competitors, I'll chose Sri Lankan every time, notwithstanding the inconsistencies of service. It’s better than average.

Just thought i'd mention that Sri Lankan offers a pretty extensive selection of main courses you can pre-order online - kinda 'book the cook' like. When I flew CMB - London there were about twenty options.

For whatever reason Sri Lankan doesn't promote this and it's not easy to find on their website. But it does exist if you look for it.
Plan and book ----> Pre order your meal ---> Business Class

I’m confused. You had middle seats but you got photos of pushback, taxi and takeoff?! Am I missing something... 🙂

Oh. And usually the bathrooms have toothbrushes, shaving kits, mouthwash, cologne and eau de toilette, as well as hand cream. Odd.

Also, Bathrooms should have had mouthwash, shaving kit, toothbrush, hand lotion, and cologne and Eau de toilette.

Remember: This is the top product on their A330 - but only some of them.
Most (?) of their fleet have old seats in 2-2-2 and some angled seats as well!

@Ross

He said business class was only half full, so I'm guessing he spent most of his time sitting with Ford, and occasionally sitting at an empty window seat for picture takaing.

@ Ross -- As Aaron guessed, several window seats were open, so for takeoff and landing I moved to one of those for the views.

@ Simon -- Out of curiosity, how many "GIFs from TV soaps" do you think I've posted since April 5?

@ JRMW -- For what it's worth, we actually laughed at her joke, because it was clear she was trying to be funny and something was just lost in translation. So I don't think that was it in this particular case.

Sounds unspectacular and I kinda could read that in the tone of the review.

Looking forward to hearing about Galle.

The return of the used towel photo....ugh
What’s the point?

Of course her wine joke was funny. C'mon man.

@ rud01 -- I've addressed this in the past, I'm not sure why you don't read my responses?
a) I take the pictures of the towels before using them
b) Even if I did take the pictures after cleaning my hands (which I don't), why on earth would you care? I wash my hands constantly throughout the day, so it would look exactly the same.
c) There's a huge variance in terms of the warm towels used by various airlines. I'm sorry if you don't find that part interesting, but maybe you could just get over it?

Last time I checked I believe this blog was free to read. None of us are paying subscribers. So where does the entitlement to criticise and complain about the lack of reviews or reviews themselves come from? There are other sites to read if you don't like what Ben writes here. I don't know how he stays so polite with some of you!

Nice review Ben. Happy to wait for your excellent reports. Ignore the haters. You provide a valuable free service. Everyone needs to remember they are not paying for this and need to chill.

Great report Ben. I am always envious of your travels - and thank you for opening our eyes so so many different airline experiences!

Looking forward to the next part.

Just posting to echo Niko_jas.

Jfc how entitled and petty does one have to be to complain about the speed at which we're receiving quality, well-documented reviews -- which none of us has paid for!

@Niko_jas - absolutely agree! Additionally, there are no screaming ads (any ads?) in any of Lucky's articles which I greatly appreciate. I've also been a freelance writer for several years and it's bloody hard work to make a living (and that's with a steady contract!). So obviously he needs to get some revenue from somewhere - hence the mild credit card pushing.
And for what it's worth, of course I love the reviews the most and it keeps me coming back to this blog, but the occasional "tabloid-style" news is also ok - it mixes it up a bit. And again, if some people don't like it, they can either skip it or go to another blog. It's really not hard.

Lucky - I hope you do read this

Re: the used towel photo response
You could have just ignored the comment & not reply.
Personally, a lot of pics of minute details on blogs don't interest me.
And it does look like it was used & bunched up from the pic u posted.
I've not flown UL's J class so I don't know how the towels are handed over to pax.
On QR as you know, it is folded/rolled up & presented on a dish/plate/whatever your call that black thingy

However the other points are valid - your trips reports have become fewer in recent months -the past 1 year; you are hawking more credit cards & merchant links etc. on your blog than before & you are now down to only 2 contributors on your site (I know there's a 3rd but he hardly posts anything)

I'm not a fan of your other writer so I only read what you write. I visit your blog regularly & I think that you are the most non confrontational, polite & patient blogger out there.

Perhaps all this constant traveling is wearing you out but please don't turn into the rest like Klint, Ott etc. who challenge & rebuke their readers unnecessarily - who incidentally are the ones who are helping you guys rake in the moolah ..

On a happier note, UL has recently been on my radar & this looked like an awesome flight. Would love to try it soon.

After booking your flight, how do you select your business class seat?