Harry J. flies higher and higher on SriLankan Airlines

Government Tuesday appointed multi-billionaire business tycoon Harry Jayawardene as Executive Chairman of the national carrier SriLankan Airlines three months ahead of the expiry of the management agreement with Emirates, the internationally acclaimed airline owned by the powerful Maktoum family of the United Arab Emirates and operating out of Dubai.Mr. Jayawardene who is Chairman of the airline was confirmed with executive status a week after Emirates announced that they would be pulling out of the management agreement with the Sri Lankan national carrier after the Government withdrew the work permit of Emirates CEO Peter Hill triggering a rupture in the relations between the two airlines. Emirates has however decided to retain its 46% ownership of the Sri Lankan airline.

The breakdown in relations began when Emirates refused to accommodate the Presidential delegation on a scheduled London-Colombo flight when President Mahinda Rajapaksa was returning from a private visit to Britain to attend the passing out of his son Yoshitha from the Naval Academy in Dartmouth.

The newly appointed Executive Chairman this week held two meetings, one at the Bandaranaike International Aiport (BIA) and one in Colombo with staff members of the airline and said that he would ensure that the high standards of the airline were maintained. Two senior Emirates officials remaining in Colombo were not invited for either of the two meetings on the basis that they would be leaving shortly.

Despite Emirates threatening legal action over revoking the visa of its SriLankan CEO Peter Hill and last week lifting a self-imposed ban on recruitment of Sri Lankan pilots, a top level source close to the West Asian carrier said yesterday they had decided against clashing with Sri Lanka any further.

In fact, he went as far as saying that Emirates had also decided to amicably hand over such things as ticketing and reservation operations that they were handling for SriLankan within a period of six months of the management contract terminating at the end of March. There was no official confirmation of this from Emirates. Earlier reports had it that Emirates was preparing to charge huge fees from SriLankan for these services. SriLankan Airlines reservation operations are handled from Dubai and had made a major contribution to its efficiency.

However, during initial discussions between Emirates CEO Tim Clarke and Sri Lankan Government officials in Colombo last week, BOI Chairman Dhammika Perera is learnt to have produced evidence of alleged unfair practices resorted to by the Emirates management to the detriment of SriLankan, including wide scale undercutting of air tickets while having a code share agreement with the local carrier.

On Wednesday a SriLankan A-340 flight UL 564 suffered extensive damage when the ground handlers at Frankfurt airport began to push back the airliner for takeoff to Colombo using a tow truck before a boarding chute was retracted causing a deep gash on its left side. The damage is so serious; sources said that the aircraft now might have to be ferried to Toulouse, France for repair. Interestingly when the pilot of the aircraft had heard the noise of the chute damaging the aircraft he had shouted into the radio asking the ground crew to halt the entire operation and it is alleged that they had continued with this highly irregular procedure till more serious damage was caused to the body of the aircraft.

According to the Pilots’ Guild sources the matter is now being probed by the authorities in Frankfurt and police there had already recorded statements from everyone concerned, including the pilot and co-pilot of the aircraft.

Interestingly in the first meeting on Tuesday Aviation and Shipping Minister Chamal Rajapaksa had with key SriLankan union leaders like those representing technicians, engineers, pilots, flight attendants etc. and Harry Jayewardene, Mr. Rajapaksa on his own had answered one of their other worst fears, when he declared that he was even ready to get some legislation passed in Parliament to prevent all types of political interference in the running of the airline.

Despite Mr. Jayewardene’s appointment as Executive Chairman, sources said some of the unions also raised their misgivings about having any truck with Mihin Air during talks with Mr. Jayewardene on Thursday at the BIA, but he had simply said that Mihin would run its own operations and SriLankan would concentrate on running its.

When pilots had raised their fears about getting adequate aircraft for the airline in future in view of the fact virtually all aircraft it now flies are on lease, Chief Financial Controller Vipula Gunatillake had assured that he was already in the process of renewing the lease of two aircraft and he was trying to get additional aircraft.