 A Frankfurt-bound SriLankan Airlines ‘Flight UL 557’ on Saturday March 21 created history in South Asia as the very first ‘Green Flight’ of the region.
SriLankan Airlines, after close to 12 months of hard work and review, has begun transforming its worldwide operations into environment-friendly ‘Green Flights’.
‘Flight UL 557’ captained by Anushad Liyanagoda, who says he is a die-hard ‘Green Environmentalist’, took a direct route at an optimum height for fuel conservation to Frankfurt where it carried out a ‘continuous descent approach’ that is the most fuel efficient, landed with reduced flaps, taxied with a single engine, used ‘idle reverse thrust’ after landing as opposed to ‘full reverse thrust’, and used a preferential runway -- all to conserve fuel.
Before embarking on that historic flight, Capt Liyanagoda met media at the terminal and said the Green Flight involved a comprehensive range of measures to make each flight as environment-friendly as possible, minimizing fuel consumption and carbon emissions and reducing noise levels.
Burning of aviation fuel is to be reduced by a variety of methods. The most significant thing reporters witnessed at the Bandaranaike International, on the ground was that the aircraft was pushed back from the terminal and towed as far as possible to avoid excessive usage of its engines.
Then while boarding passengers its air-conditioning and other systems were powered from ground power sources.
The take-off of the Green Flight was on reduced flaps to burn less fuel and the on-time departure ensured that these systems were not excessively used. The aircraft itself had been prepared further by a full wash of its fuselage and engines to reduce wind drag while in flight.
“Our conservation efforts are driven from the bottom up within the airline, with the involvement of every employee. In fact, it was the example set by our workforce that led us to turn SriLankan into a full-fledged ‘Green Airline’. Even our waste recycling programme is being carried out by our main employee union,” said Manoj Gunawardena, the airline CEO.
SriLankan has moved quickly over the past six months to turn itself into an environmentally friendly company, with a wide variety of well-planned initiatives to reduce all types of consumption, and recycle waste products.
He said that SriLankan is already assisting the Civil Aviation Authority on aviation environment standards in Sri Lanka, and is also actively participating in environmental initiatives by the island nation’s tourism industry. |
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