SriLankan Airlines Set to Join the oneworld Alliance May 1

by Gary Leff

SriLankan now has an official joining date of May 1 for entry into oneworld, making them an alliance partner of American (and US Airways) as well as British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and more. And they’re a great addition to oneworld for frequent flyers.

  • With American you’ll be able to include them in AAdvantage distance-based oneworld awards, for instance flying over the Atlantic and connecting in Europe to Asia, or including them on trips to the Maldives or India and Pakistan.

  • Bangalore, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, and Tiruchirappalli in India as well as Male in the Maldives are short hops from Colombo, Sri Lanka that will only cost 4500 British Airways points each way. (Of course many of these short hops are also quite inexpensive to buy.)

In Europe SriLankan flies to Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Paris, and Rome and they serve major destinations in Asia like Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Guangzhou as well plus several cities in the Middle East.

They currently operate economy and business class service but I’ve read that the addition of new Airbus A330-300 and A350-900 will lead them to re-introduce a first class offering – so I’ll be excited to try that.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Not a great airline, but they’re based in a fabulous destination and one of the most beautiful places on the planet. I know Gary’s taken with the Maldives, which I find insufferably bland (anonymous westernized beach resorts with no sense of place), but I’d take Sri Lanka any day — wandering around the old Dutch-Portuguese fort city of Galle, staying on a tea plantation and hiking in the highlands, visiting the ancient capitals of Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura, climbing the rock fortress of Sigirya, going on a leopard safari in Yala, and lounging on some spectacular beaches on the south and east coasts. The Rajapaksa government is increasingly authoritarian, but the country is safe since the civil war ended. There’s a lot more strife in the Maldives.

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