SriLankan Engineering trains staff of Pakistan airline Airblue

SriLankan Engineering, the technical arm of SriLankan Airlines which is now providing a variety of services for other airlines, recently completed a training programme for engineering staff of Airblue, Pakistan’s fastest growing domestic airline.

“Airblue is one more customer airline that we are looking forward to a long-term relationship with, as part of our active programme of offering Third Party Maintenance Facilities to other airlines,” said Captain Dick Hutton, Chief Technical Officer of SriLankan. “We are presently in discussions with several carriers including those in India, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, offering our expertise in many types of maintenance activities. We are confident that we now have both the necessary expertise and the facilities.”

The company said SriLankan Engineering has invested heavily in greatly enhancing its facilities and capabilities at Bandaranaike International Airport, Katunayake, in order to provide services to other airlines. This resulted in Emirates Airline contracting SriLankan for a major Maintenance Check (known as a 4C5Y Check which is conducted approximately every five years on an aircraft) which was completed in July, a major milestone for SriLankan Engineering which was given the complicated task ahead of other reputed airline maintenance organisations.

SriLankan’s Technical Training School, which is a section of SriLankan Engineering and provides comprehensive training for both pilots and engineering staff, has already obtained certifications from the aviation authorities of Pakistan and the Maldives, in addition to Sri Lanka’s own Civil Aviation Authority.

“We are seeking partnerships with several other countries and civil aviation authorities, including the European authority EASA, which will enable us to train aviation professionals from many more countries,” said Harsha Priyadarshan, Technical Training Manager. “We expect more groups of staff from Airblue for training in the future.”

The 6-day course for Radio Engineers was conducted by SriLankan’s in-house Trainers at its Technical Training School. Participants included six Engineers from Airblue and one Inspector from the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority.

Airblue, launched in May 2004, operates 30 flights a day to seven cities in Pakistan, and one international destination – Dubai. It currently has a fleet of six aircraft - twin-engined Airbus A320s and A321s – and has announced plans to order several more A320 and A330 aircraft.