Jul 18, 2005 10:40 PM
10032 Views
(Updated Jul 18, 2005 10:43 PM)
.....then flying from Colombo to Chennai by Sri Lankan could be a good experience.
I decided to take SriLankan from Colombo to Chennai this July 2005, generally my preference has been Jet Airways. I thought of giving it a try mainly because the flight departure from Colombo was very convenient for me. I could spend almost the whole day in Colombo and take the evening 7pm flight.
I reached airport in time and was surprised to see several check-in counters. Then I realized that they were checking-in for several flights scheduled for the evening. I waited at one counter and the lady behind the counter was extremely slow, so I changed to another counter once again had to wait for 10-15mins before my turn came.
While my boarding pass was being processed suddenly 2-3 passengers just barged in and very rudely asked me to give side as they wanted to check-in a few huge boxes. Initially my politeness was not good enough and then I had to literally shout at them to wait for their turn. Obviosuly the SriLankan staff did nothing to help me.
After I received my boarding pass, I was given a lounge card and I proceeded towards the lounge on first floor. The SriLankan lounge at Colombo is one of the best lounges I have ever seen. It has all the general facilities like snacks, tea & drinks but it also offers something extra :- a complimentary massage, free internet access, free local phone access, two huge wide screen plasma TV sets with remote headphones. It also has a separate smoking room plus it has four day rooms !
When the lounge attendee informed me about the boarding of my flight I proceeded to the aircraft. So far everything was smooth, till I reached inside the plane.
The plane was crowded like a local bus, there were people everywhere carrying huge amount of luggage (mainly big boxes and cloth bags). I was surprised how the ground staff at Colombo airport allowed so much cabin baggage inside. The main pursor of the flight announced that if passengers did not allow him to shift the extra baggage to cargo area, he will not allow the flight to take off. In the process the plane was delayed by 15 mins.
It finally took off and I was feeling really shaky as I was thinking about all the extra baggage on-board.
The in-flight crew was already stressed due to huge misbehaviour of most of the Indian passengers (sorry to say that). Thus the service was not friendly at all. The food was also not packed properly and I opted not to eat. My fellow passenger (was a charming lady from Delhi) did comment that the food was not at all good. She promised not to fly Sri Lankan again.
I requested for a passenger feedback form which I completed and handed over to the flight attendant. Hopefully the ground staff will be instructed now onwards not to allow excess baggage on-board.
As I waited for my baggage at Chennai airport, I saw many of the boxes on the luggage belt in damaged condition. All such boxes contained liquor bottles and many of them were broken and the liquor was spilled all over. It was a really poor show at Chennai and I was really ashamed to be standing among all those people.
I am thinking whether to take Sri Lankan again on this sector, maybe you should think twice .!!
