Hi,
Here is my horrendous experience with srilankan airlines dring the travel with my wife and a new born.
I have been travelling with srilankan airlines for the last 6 years, but this is the first time have gone through a hell; right through each journey process.
Boarding from Chennai and reaching to melbourne, australia.
Booking number: 6RTQQM
Travel date: 28th sept’22
Issue 1)During the Checkin process:
The lady who did our checking was very harsh, rude & strict inspite of seeing us struggling with a new born.Even for 500gm/1kg she stalled us to make remove them
from the cabin luggage and only after that she gave our boarding pass.When we talked to her manager(Description: A short, fair, bald guy) he was equally arrogant, saying we wont allow an extra gram as well and not at all accomodative our gentle request(although we put forward our request as its baby essential stuff).
When I quoted, my past experinces with sri lankan airlines were always smooth, friendly and accomodative, the guy replied’Those days are gone, we just make our rules.If you want to, you can travel else its your choice.’ We reached 3 hours before checkin time and because of the drama with the checkin lady and her manager we were stalled in the checkin counter for 2.5 hours and had to rush with the poor new born during the final call.
Issue 2)Journey from Colombo to Melbourne:
Even before booking this ticket, I had orally confirmed with the sri lankan airlines that since I am travelling with new born infant do they have bassnet seat? To which they happily acknowledged that they have bassinet seat which can be booked 3 week prior to travel;which I ensured and got the bassinet seats 50-G, F.When we entered the flight to melbourne we realized our seats had been wrongly assigned to 57-H, K(Infact I had reconfirmed during the checking process that ours is a bassinet seat from the lady who did our checkin).The flight ground staff came to the flight and acknowledged that it was the airline mistake, but shamelessly told they cant do anything about it and will not give bassinet seats.
Also to our face, the ground staff flatly told If you wish they can get down and skip the travel.(How on earth these people have the guts to acknowledge the mistake and also told they wont do anything about it and just waked away. walked away? Left helplesss)
Even if all these inconvenience is for just ourselves, we would still let this go, but what did the poor infant did inspite of the prior arrangements?
So the whole purpose of booking this ticket to travel with bassinet seat was completely defeated!
Can you imagine carrying a new born for 9hrs of flight after having layover of 5+ hrs [Initially our layover was only around 1hr which the airline rescheduled].
(The lady who did our checkin should have purposefully/mistakenly/carelessly should have changed our seat Or how on each can it magically change by itself?)
Attached proof of the initial bassinet seat and also the different seats allotted in our boarding pass.
I wish the silankan airlines to recover with the tough time they are going through and soar high.But the chances are quite low with these kind of employees and such bad customer experiences.
So my fellow travellers/families with babies please have a second thought before booking with sri lankan airlines!