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SLAF suspends civilian flights; incentives for other domestic operators
View(s):The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) has suspended civilian flights after the aviation regulator recalled the certificate of airworthiness (CofA) issued to its Xian MA60 aircraft, pending technical compliance. The Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL) and the Air Force also contradicted each other on the latter’s future plans for civilian passenger transport. In a notice on its website, the regulator says the SLAF recently informed the CAASL that it would not engage in the transport of civilian passengers. The SLAF denied this.
“The declaration in the CAASL notice is incorrect and has been mentioned without consultation with the SLAF,” Air Force media spokesman Gihan Seneviratne told the Sunday Times.
“The SLAF has not made any policy decision to refrain from transport of civilian passengers in duly approved and certified civilian transport aircraft and will continue working with the CAASL to improve its civilian passenger transport safety and standards,”Group Captain Seneviratne said.
But the SLAF admitted it had stopped scheduled civilian passenger transport for the time being, including its Jaffna and Trincomalee flights. One of its MA60s—acquired from China in 2011—is grounded for maintenance. The other is only operating military flights until a unit in its Pratt & Whitney engine is removed as required by the regulator.
“Under our regulations, we can still use it for military flights but to transport civilian passengers, we have to remove that small unit,” confirmed a senior SLAF officer. He said the MA60 will be compliant by the end of this month.
The SLAF has had prolonged discussions with the CAASL over shortcomings in its passenger transport operation. In 2015, the Sunday Times first reported that Helitours, SLAF’s domestic passenger carrier, was handing out indemnity forms to paying customers and flying them on Harbin Y-12 aircraft not cleared to transport civilians. These flights were run under military call signs against civil aviation regulations.
Despite undertakings to stop, this writer in October 2017 flew on the Harbin Y-12 to Jaffna after signing an indemnity form. The SLAF said at the time that it only did this when the MA60s were not available. The Y-12 is not listed in the civil aircraft register. The SLAF no longer was engaged in that practice and would also not do so in future, Grp Cpt Seneviratne said. The CAASL also confirmed that the SLAF was now cooperating with the regulator whenever it needed to do inspections, in a clear departure from past attitudes. The Y-12 is still available for civilian charter flights.
There are separate concerns that the SLAF’s involvement in civilian passenger transport is choking the domestic aviation sector by discouraging private operators who cannot compete on a level playing field. Helitours sustains lower flight operation costs as it is part of an established military structure. Private sector operators have repeatedly been edged out despite intermittent attempts to sustain scheduled operations.
The Government recently took policy decisions with a view to promoting domestic air services. These are published on the CAASL’s website and include a proposal to set up a dedicated passenger terminal at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) to handle domestic air services; make available a common maintenance hangar at BIA for domestic operators; demarcate part of apron ‘D’ for domestic flights and introduce a separate charging mechanism; and to instruct all domestic operators to night-park their commercial aircraft at Ratmalana owing to space issues at BIA.
It was also decided to develop Sigiriya, Palaly, Hingurakgoda, Koggala and Trincomallee airports for domestic operators using funds from donor agencies and the Airport & Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd. Operations of all civil flights will be subjected to civil aviation requirements and self-handling will be permitted at all domestic airports except BIA.
Ground-handling charges at BIA will be reduced for domestic air operators and aviation fuel supplied at all internal airports. Slot allocation will be done by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and some helicopter landing sites will be set up in Colombo city. Legislation will be amended to release domestic aviation from value added tax while there will be a one-year (from the date of commencement of operations) exemption of landing and parking charges. A request will also be made to the Finance Ministry to exempt domestic aircraft leases from withholding tax.
The same statement on CAASL’s website said the SLAF has undertaken to stop civilian passenger transport but the Air Force has requested the regulator to remove that sentence.
The CAASL has invited applications and business proposals from the private sector for domestic air services. Limitations in space and facilities means the DGCA will take a first-come, first-served position with particular emphasis on type of aircraft (Western-build, modern planes with not less than 20 seats). Operators are encouraged to start services “at the earliest”.