For our trip to the Maldives, I decided to book a relatively cheap business class fare with Sir Lankan Airlines (One World Airline) from Singapore to Male via Colombo. The departure time lined up perfectly with our red-eye Singapore Airlines flight from Perth and would get us to Male Airport by 2 PM local time.
Singapore Airlines and Sri Lankan are interline partners which means you can check luggage right through to the final destination. It’s a handy benefit if you’re flying separate itineraries with completely different alliances.
In Singapore, we collected our boarding passes and invites to the contract lounge in Singapore.
We walked through and quickly left because the lounge was maxed to capacity. It’s a Priority Pass lounge and now also caters to Star Alliance and Kris Flyer Gold members while Singapore Airlines carries out renovations to its lounges.
Note: Since the Qantas First Class Lounge in Singapore is now open, if you have One World Emerald Status, you can access this before your flight!
It’s not an ideal experience, but Changi Airport is pretty nice even if you don’t have lounge access.
Sri Lankan has a reputation for swapping aircrafts last minute, and the same happened to my flights (for the better).
Sri Lankan Airlines A330-200 Business Class Review
The A330-200 has one of the oldest semi flatbed business class cabins in the fleet, and it’s vintage to say the least. While the product is nothing exciting, it’s perfectly fine for the 4.5h flight from Singapore to Colombo. The configuration is a less ideal 2-2-2, and while each seat has got a pretty large privacy divider, you would still need to climb over your seatmate if you want to get up.
The relatively small cabin of 18 seats was half empty during our flight. Considering the fare was pretty cheap, it’s my guess that paid upgrades would be pretty competitive as well. Keep that in mind if you ever fly them in economy class. The seat is a weird design that elevates up when you put it in lounge mode. It’s not the most comfortable seat out there but considering its age, it’s alright. In bed mode, you can expect a semi flatbed — this means the upper half is on a slight incline. While the seat is from a different era, the IFE system seems to be pretty new. It’s responsive and easy to operate with a good selection of movies.
Service was pretty good, the crew were friendly and occasionally checked if there was anything else we would like. Food-wise, the options were pretty basic. I opted for the noodles, which although nuked to obliteration in the microwave tasted ok. Coffee was also good, and the few glasses of Mumm Champagne helped me doze off for a bit.
On the champagne and service side, my first glass had lipstick plastered all over it. When I asked for a new glass, the crew were very apologetic and made sure top-ups were offered.
In Conclusion
Considering the price, Sri Lankan Airlines Business class on the A330-200 is a perfectly fine product for short flights. Seats are old but spacious, and it’s much better than a basic recliner.
