Sri Lankan Airlines
SriLankan attempts to rein in chaos
April 6, 2012, 9:11 pm
By Rohan Abeywardena
A silent work-to-rule campaign by Sri Lankan pilots for nearly three weeks, which was adding to confusion and mismanagement at the national carrier, was expected to be settled with the bringing back of former Flight Operations Manager Capt. Milinda Ratnayake to tackle pilot rosters from this week, informed aviation sources said yesterday.
They said Ratnayake who was the longest serving Flight Operations Manager of the airline for more than ten years had been moved out as Head of Service Delivery in 2010 and currently served as an ordinary pilot. He was earlier identified as being too close to the previous Emirates management of the airline, but he knew how to keep all pilots on their toes, sources said.
Indiscipline at the airline had reached unbelievable levels with current Head of Flight Operations Capt. Navin de Silva, too, allegedly joining the work-to-rule campaign, sources said.When The Island contacted Capt. De Silva, he however said he was not in a position to comment and directed us to the airline’s Corporate Communications division.
Other pilots, however, charged that there was an excess of pilots numbering more than 280 to fly the 22 aircraft in its service, whereas earlier they had managed with about 205 pilots, but thanks to the excess the work-to-rule campaign had so far gone unnoticed.
Civil aviation sources charged that there had also been a series of incidents involving some pilots incorrectly handling their aircraft. One incident had even caused several million dollars loss to the carrier, they said.