‘Mess in SriLankan Airlines’ an attempt to sling mud

Your article on ‘The mess in SriLankan Airlines is getting worse!’ written by ‘Insider’ is condemning the past and present Boards of SriLankan Airlines and praising the Emirates management as if they made millions of dollars of profit (air transportation always lost money during Emirates) and is obviously written by a disgruntled ex-employee perhaps because of his inability to secure employment in the airline after the ousting of his masters.

The present Chairman is an honourable man, has many accomplishments in the business world and is well-known for fair-play and honesty. The present CEO is not only an acclaimed pilot, but he has worked in many management and administration roles in the airline industry.

‘Insider’ is criticising the decision to purchase A350 aircraft when at the time the Government policy was to replace the age-old fleet of aircraft with more fuel efficient aircraft to best service the network that the airline was operating. He has conveniently forgotten that A330s and A340s were bought during the Emirates management. Even during the Emirates time, SriLankan was servicing CMB-LON, CMB-Frankfurt, CMB-Paris and CMB-Narita and they deployed A340s on these routes. 

In the new re-fleeting program, the A340s which were no longer in production were replaced with more fuel efficient bigger capacity A350s in order to serve the long-haul destination which A340s were servicing previously. Current thinking of the company is to discount all long-haul loss-making routes and develop SriLankan as a regional airline which would no longer require long-haul aircraft.

Therefore, this article is written by ‘Insider’ with the main intention to sling mud at others and to show that people who were serving on the Board of Directors of the airline are doing so in order to enjoy free travel. Little does he know that the Directors who spend most of their valuable time attending Board meetings, Audit Committee meetings and going through papers are not paid any allowance but given a fixed set of tickets per annum on seat availability basis as commonly practiced in the airline industry.