SriLankan Airlines joined the oneworld alliance a little under a year ago, which was an exciting development. I’ve flown SriLankan several times before they joined the oneworld alliance, and really enjoyed my flights on them.
While they don’t have the best product in the world, there’s something really exotic about them, which makes them a fun airline to fly.
Anyway, I’m soon headed to the Maldives, and while I have my return flight figured out, I’m still working on my outbound flight. I’m thinking of partly flying SriLankan to get there, given that awards are much cheaper through American AAdvantage when booking to Colombo than Male (since the former is in “Asia 2,” while the latter is in the “Middle East”).
In looking at flights on SriLankan, I’m trying to figure out which kind of business class product I should expect.
Having flown them in the past, I’ve experienced their old A340 business class product.
I’ve also experienced what was (at the time) their new A330 business class product.
But I also knew they had a more modern A330 business class product than that, consisting of fully flat seats.
Suffice to say I was really thrown off when I was looking at SriLankan seatmaps and noticed they also have an A330 with a reverse herringbone business class configuration. How many business class configurations can such a small airline have??
After doing some digging, it seems that SriLankan has taken delivery of their first of five A330-300 aircraft, all of which will feature reverse herringbone seats in business class. Rumor has it that these planes are even outfitted with Wi-Fi.
That’s a heck of a product, especially given that they don’t have any ultra longhaul routes.
More generally speaking, this FlyerTalk thread is a great resource for SriLankan’s business class overhaul. According to this thread, here are your chances of getting a flat bed based on aircraft type:
- 50% (three out of six) of the A340-200s feature fully flat beds in business class
- 71% (five out of seven) of the A330-200s feature fully flat beds in business class
- 100% (one out of one) of the A330-300s feature fully flat reverse herringbone seats in business class
Bottom line
If flying business class on SriLankan you’ll want to fly an A330-300 if possible, since it has the best product, and also guarantees you a fully flat bed (barring an aircraft swap). Otherwise you’ll want to book an A330-200 if possible. You’ll only want to book an A340-200 as a last resort, since it gives you the least chance of having a fully flat bed, and also has the oldest product.
Has anyone flown SriLankan’s business class lately? If so, how was your experience?
hey Lucky, thank you for the review - I am flying DXB to CMB on Sri Lankan and this review comes really handy.
Does Sri Lankan has a First class lounge at DXB T1 or I'd better off using BA's? thanks :-)
Our flight in July from AUH - CMB - MLE is showing as A321 and A300-200 & reverse. Not expecting anything special with regard to seats, with any luck we will be surprised. Welcome any comments.......
@ AmandaB -- Assume you mean A330-200? If so, the A321 business class seats will be a bit like domestic first class in the US, while the A330-200 seats will hopefully be flat, or angled at worst.
My plane spotting skills aren't great, but isn't that an A300/310 in the first picture?
@ Noah Sprenger -- Nope, that's an A330-200.
I flew UL on the A330-300 CMB-DOH and wrote about it on FT (only UL report in the TR index). I thought it was pretty good - reverse herringbone is a very good starting point and decent lounge/food/service.
It's worth pointing out that their new a330-300 only flies to China for the moment
@ RDH -- And to Tokyo, per the schedule.
You trying to get the A330-300?
@ Alvin -- Yep!
What happened to the Sri Lankan and Maldives reviews? (only see the A340 up)
Worth pointing out that flying Sri Lankan on 3 - 5 hour hops still gets you an extremely uncomfortable regional business class seat.
another disappointment for your loyal LGBT fans. We all wanted Kuwait man. On my next cc signup I am not using your link. Sad. :(
@ Ivan Y -- Sorry, what does flying Kuwait vs. Qatar have to do with being LGBT?
I am booked to fly Srilankan long haul coming May with my family. My preferred airline is Emirates as they have pretty good connections from where I live but as I was getting a good fare for a family of 4 I booked Srilankan(eventually EK matched the UL fare)
Ok I must have missed that post but did you decide on Qatar or Kuwait?
@ Joey -- You're sharp, haven't posted about it yet. ;) But based on feedback the Qatar A319 won.
Can you find award space on Sri Lankan Air in business class using AA miles?
@ Beachfan -- They're not great about releasing award space, but yes, they do make some available.