Review of Etihad Airways flight from Colombo to Abu Dhabi in Economy

Introduction

Hola amigos!

These past years have been quite busy so I have been unable to keep pace with travel and FRs…but I'll try to catch up.

This is the 4th entry on a trip to Sri Lanka I took 4.5 years ago (basically a retro-FR now). 

The previous flights on this series were:
 

So, after an awesome week in this awesome little land, it was time to go back to Colombia. Since my route took me through Madrid, where one of my best friends lived, I changed my ticket to spend a couple of days over there.
 
The day of travel I was in the middle of the island, in Kandy. So my trip actually began by riding a train.
  

I had planned my trip to have enough time to make up for train delays or any other messup. 
I made it just in time to Colombo's train station with enough time to go to the airport (which is about 1 hour away)… of course I had to haggle with the cab driver, who ended up receiving a nice payment in USD instead of Rupees; desperate times call for desperate measures.
 

At bandaranaike International airport

Like its neighbour to the NE, Sri Lanka takes airport security seriously. Check-in was more or less speedy and the kind lady gave me window seats both to Abu Dhabi and Madrid. 
 
Bandaranaike is basically a glorified bus station, not the best spot for spotting, food and shopping alternatives are scarce…and it was well, undewhelming.  This is where I sorely hated myself for losing my Priority Pass card.

Because I left everything for last minute I was at the mercy of the shops available at the airport, and that is where I spent my last ruppees buying tea and other gifts for people back home. Having done that I had a dreadful wait until we were allowed into the gate area.

We were then bussed to the A321 for tonight's hop across the Indian Ocean to Arabia. 

Etihad's A321

2016 had been an EY-intensive year for me. I had ridden on their A346, B77W and A332 before…the product was solid. Now it was time to try their narrowbody product. I didn't know well what I was up to.

Turns out it was a great cabin for a narrowbody…consistent with the comfortable interiors in the bigger planes. The only thing amiss were blankets, odd thing for a night flight. 

Once people stopped boarding, the crew (mainly from Eastern Europe) passed around handing blankets for those who wanted (basically everyone..duh) and menus for tonight's flight

Enroute to abu dhabi

I was battered from my trip around SL. I basically rode 15h of trains, busses, tuk tuk, minivan in a three day period. It was intense.

I slept most of the flight until food was handed. I went for Pasta, as I wanted something western for a change. It was consistently good, as was the case with all of my EY flights. Maybe too much pasta having a pasta salad for entree and then more pasta for mains…go figure

arrival to Abu Dhabi

So…after a sleepy and uneventful 4 hours we made it to Abu Dhabi… we parked on a remote gate. This was a thrill as we passed between the massive long haulers Etihad used to operate back then, including the A380.

We were dropped at the terminal where most of my fellow travelers went to the transit lane.