SriLankan pilots threaten showdown

The national carrier SriLankan is in for a stormy showdown with its pilots and the latter represented by its guild has given an ultimatum to its Emirates management to correct various alleged violations of their collective agreement before October 25 or face them taking various actions to win their demands.

Sri Lankan pilots complain that they have been silently suffering many indignities along with members of other unions under the current management and the straw that broke the camel’s back was the management decision to downgrade their hotel accommodation in a number of cities being served by the airline, including London, Paris, Bangkok and Frankfurt.

The London move appears to have particularly irked the pilots as they have been shifted from the Holiday Inn to a much cheaper hotel called Park Inn, closer to Heathrow Airport.

A SriLankan source said that it was not only cheap, but even more convenient as it earlier took about one and a half hours to travel from the hotel in the City to the airport, which journey can now be covered in a matter of minutes. Besides, he said many other airlines too put up their crew at the same hotel, including Air China, Gulf Air, Royal Brunei, Royal Jordanian, Virgin, Jet Airways and British Airways. The airline has also increased the daily meal allowance by $15 for crew members staying in the hotel.

Guild sources contemptuously ask whether the $15 was a bribe to buy them over to management’s ad hoc decisions. According to the pilots the hotel is situated in a bad neighbourhood and as a result they avoid going out at night. They accused a top SriLankan official of going around booking new hotels for crew personally to collect commissions.

The management, however, appears to have backed down on this particular issue and has made arrangements to shift the crew to the London Marriot from April.

The guild also charged that while the employees were being exploited by the management, the top rungs and their cronies were living it up in style. For example, they said when the carrier sponsors golf tournaments and horse races entire hotels are booked for days with everything paid on company account. And anyone who dares to raise such issues are either bought over or hounded out.

They termed as terror tactics the methods used by the management to keep a lid on worker grievances. For two years the company employees had not been paid the usual 13th months pay stating there were no profits, but published accounts reveal profits. Yet because of the fear factor so far no one has dared to rake up the issue.

According to the guild so far about 25 local pilots had left the airline, many in disgust since the Emirates management came to the helm of the airline and there were no moves to replace them and instead foreign pilots who are looking around a place to renew their licences are being accommodated. Whereas other airlines charge such pilots US$25,000, the SriLankan allows them to pay just $300 per month and they vanish in six months with the renewed licence.

The pilots also threatens to go public after October 25 with details about violations of the rights of all workers and even give details about how unqualified some of the very top people of the airline are. Contacted in this regard SriLankan CEO Peter Hill said he would reply the pilots when they formally put things down in black and white, face-to-face and till then he was not interested in commenting.