Dear Moderate,
It is always refreshing to read a post such as yours which is written with malice to none. I suppose if I was in the Commander’s shoes, I may have acted in the same manner. It is left to CAASL to put their “foot down with a firm hand” to quote Capt. George Ferdinand who was the Manager Flight Operations for Air Ceylon and Air Lanka.
We now hear that the Defence Ministry wants to operate an Airline run by the SLAF between Colombo and KKS. The problem is that State aircraft (military, customs and police) do not come under the ICAO Chicago Convention. The reason given for such an operation is that the private operators are charging exorbitant rates. Surely the answer lies in providing more competition. One redeeming factor is that we have a ‘good guy’ in our Attorney General who knows how the ICAO works and has been a Director of the CAASL before.
Some time ago at a meeting with MR (not Milinda) regarding Mehin Lanka, the then DGCAA pointed out that something was not in accordance with international conventions to which MR retorted “Who is Civil Aviation………? I am Civil Aviation! “
The Civil Aviation Bill which will restore the lost powers back to CAASL, has got stuck in Parliament again. The hangar door talk is that the Deputy Minister of Aviation, AASL and the Unions are against it. So is the Commander of the SLAF. The fear is that if we disregard the ICAO Conventions we will end up a ‘Pariah State’ unable to operate anywhere except the SARC nations. The ICAO audit that was supposed to be this year has been postponed, due to non compliance by CAASL. What a sad state of affairs!