On our trip to Europe, we debated between many airlines, when the travel agent asked us to try Sri Lankan because of the hugely discounted fares...after much thought and consultation about this previously unheard of airline, we booked our tickets at an incredible price.
Bombay to Colombo was good, the food was kind of Indian but a little different..and the airhostesses extremely polite, soft spoken and gracious. We transited at Tamarind Tree which was beautiful for a night and were then on our way to Paris. Again the checkin staff were welcoming and the flight good. I enjoyed their inflight selection of movies...Beautiful Mind and Monsters Ball and Monsoon Wedding and so many more...there were Hindi movies and even Tamil ones! I guess many people in Sri Lanka speak Tamil or they have a lot of Tamilians on their flights (I dont mean all Sri Lankans are Tamilian in response to the email I got).
While returning, we stopped at the Male airport for around half an hour and it was mind boggling...the landing strip has sea on both sides and nothing else, and the airport is on an island and Male on another one....our minds were made up to have the next holiday in Mauritius.
We were booked on this Sri Lankan offer which had accomodation free for three nights at a hotel in Colombo...we stayed only a night at the Galadari and did some sightseeing...
This was a huge difference from Air India, almost like Thai Airways, the flights were dot on time, really sweet air hostesses, good food, great baggage claim and checkin...and our trip a very pleasant surprise...