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Suspension lifted, but SriLankan not using facility for four of five neo planes; why?
View(s):The Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL) has restored certification to SriLankan Airlines to fly its Airbus ‘neo’ fleet for more than an hour outside the range of airports suitable for emergency landings–but for reasons not immediately specified, the company is only applying the facility to one of its five ‘neo’ planes.
This means that the other four aircraft continue to spend extra time in the air to ensure that they are always within 60 minutes of an emergency or diversion airport. This includes Friday night’s Bangkok flight which was airborne nearly an hour more than usual, carried 30% extra fuel and hugged the Indian coastline so that it was regularly in range of the required landing strips.
Earlier this year, SriLankan Airlines lost certification to conduct A320/321neo aircraft on ETOPS–or Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards–after its Maintenance Department released one of the planes (registration 4R-ANE) for use despite having detected debris in the oil monitoring system of an engine.
As a result, the A321neo aircraft flying as UL 898 to Hong Kong on January 21, 2018, was forced to shut down the engine in question and divert to Bangkok on a single engine. The CAASL investigated and immediately withdrew ETOPS certification. Without ETOPS approval, a flight must always be within 60 minutes of an emergency or diversion airport. With certification, however, it may fly longer–in the case of the A320-321neos, at least 90 minutes–outside the range of a suitable landing area.
The suspension meant flights to such destinations as Hong Kong, Bangkok and Canton, for which the A320-321neos are used, clocked additional flying times of at least one-and-a-half hours (both ways) as their routes are adjusted to ensure they comply with the 60 minute rule.
However, on May 11, CAASL restored ETOPS certification. This followed weeks of discussion and inspection, including a visit by a team from Airbus. “The airline rectified all the concerns,” a spokesman for the regulator said. “They outlined measures to avoid similar incidents in future and changed some of their procedures.”
Without availing itself of the facility, however, SriLankan is still operating only one Airbus ‘neo’ as an ETOPS flight. CAASL said it did not know why. When asked, SriLankan Airlines said it will provide an answer next week. “This question involves many technical details which can be forwarded only by next week,” said Deepal V Perera, Head of Corporate Communications. “As you may be aware, our offices are closed during the weekends.”
It was not immediately clear why the airline’s 24×7 operational offices were unable to clarify matters–particularly as passengers were still flying during weekends, notwithstanding the corporate offices being shut.
More than 900 SriLankan departures were late in February, with 280 of them leaving the airport over an hour behind. The February on-time performance of the airline was even worse than its January record when 840 departures were more than 15 minutes delayed (it was 911 in February), with 121 of them more than one hour behind.