Srilanka crisis-is it safe to book Srilankan airline?

Sri Lanka as a nation is in deep crisis. However does it mean we should not fly Srilankan? Srilanka’s national airline is operating almost normally and its scheduled flights are flying. 

I did check flightstats to check if Srilankan flights are operating normally or not. Most flights seem to be operating normally

Is Srilankan a  cheaper option to fly? Yes

• Chennai-Melbourne : Srilankan: 66k , Next best option: 76k INR
• Mumbai-Seychelles: Srilankan: 34k INR Next best option: 58k INR
• For many other places Srilankan flies to, their rates could be competitive

Thus we can see that Srilankan is selling tickets for cheap. Many countries have issued travel advisory suggesting their citizens should not visit Srilanka. However there are no red flags on transit via Srilankan as of now. It might be a good idea to save some money and book Srilankan- while now is not the best time for visiting Srilanka, just a transit via Colombo airport should be fine.

Risks:

There is still some risk that your trip may be spoiled if unexpected things happen- like 

• some unrest in Colombo airport or 
• airport running out of fuel stock to refuel planes- happening already- Srilankan is filling their planes in India
• some major Govt decision affecting travel via Govt etc
• flights having to be canceled because the crew couldn’t reach the airport or some spare part couldn’t be procured etc. 

However hopefully nothing like these happens and your travel goes through. If you can take some minimum risk like above against the reward of saving a few thousand rupees on your flight ticket. Go ahead and book Srilankan. Even if you book the next best airline in the world there is no guarantee that there won’t be a single issue during your trip. Travel always involves some risk, so I would take some calculated risk if savings are good.

There are talks of privatizing Srilankan airline to raise money. But I guess that process will take a long time. Hopefully Airline won’t face issues like having to cannibalize planes for spare parts, start canceling trips etc which are not good for the airline valuation, PR and passenger experience.

When I tweeted this, majority preferred not to book srilankan

Given the Srilanka crisis, is it safe to fly @flysrilankan if their tickets are cheap? My thoughts here https://t.co/Vi7T6oFzXR .. what are yours? #airlineblog

— Shrinidhi Hande (@enidhi) May 27, 2022

What are your thoughts? Are you comfortable flying with Srilankan if the tickets are cheaper?

Similar: Srilankan reward experience * Srilankan long haul experience * My experience with Srilankan * My Srilanka related blog posts *