Being a regular traveller on Srilankan Airlines, national carrier of Sri Lanka and several other airlines 20 -25 times a year I have come across all sorts of air hostesses. Irrespective of the promise many airlines make about their "legendary" service levels, on air it is suffice to say "they do their job" as required and nothing more.
In almost all airlines they come in standard configuration! Very polished, very well dressed (won't call them immaculately dressed though!), walks about with air of confidence (may be arrogance), do what they are suppose to do exactly (meaning from safety demos where applicable to food and drinks rounds and duty free etc). However I've mostly found them to be very formal, talk to many first time flyers with sense of sarcasm when questioned on a basic matter such as pressing the "attend" button mistakenly, mostly with a straight face (poker face at times!). What really takes the cake is the complicated, put up accent they talk to passengers! (Probably they take pride in their complicated pronunciation that most don't understand).
However UL 309 SIN-CMB on 7th November 2014 was different. At least for those of us at the Economy Cabin. We were serviced by two Sri Lankan Air hostesses, "Kylie" and "Ashani". They were not the most eloquent or elegant that I have come across. But they went about their tasks with such lucidity and in a friendly manner it brought about a smile in almost all who experienced the two of them. They were genuinely enjoying their tasks and they had fun in doing it (just between the two of them). When serving food there were several occasions that they ran out of the popular food in their trolly. They were quick to replenish but the beauty was the manner in which they took the shortage, attended to the same and put a smile in the passengers face. On the face of things they did not look veterans in the industry, contrary they looked quite the opposite!
Towards the end of the flight I did walk up to the chief stewardess and paid a compliment regarding the two who served us. Surprisingly I found here to be more friendlier than the others as well. (My bad I forgot to take down here name). Even the Purser was a friendly gent.
Kudos to the UL 309 team on 07th November. Hope Srilankan will be able to infuse that sort of energy to more crew members!
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