Sri Lanka Aviation

Emir of Qatar to arrive in Sri Lanka today. During his short visit, King Tamimi bin Hamad Al Thani is scheduled to hold discussions with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on upgrading bilateral ties between the two countries.

Is Qatar interested in buying SriLankan Airlines?

Doubt is he coming for a deal to buy srilankan

New CEO at SriLankan:-

Mr. Rakhita Jayawardena has been appointed as CEO.

He has his work cut out for him....

On the plus side he can't be any worse than Kapila and Manoj.

Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani accompanied by a high-level delegation, and the President of Sri Lanka held bilateral consultations at the Presidential Secretariat.

The discussion centered on matters of bilateral significance. The main subjects included cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, tourism, labor relations, energy, air connectivity, etc.

Highlighting the air connectivity between the two countries with 28 flights per week and 12 bilateral agreements in place for cooperation in a wide array of fields, the President mentioned of the immense potential for further cooperation for the mutual benefit of the two countries.

SV782 JED-CMB is being operated by a Boeing 747-400. Been happening for the past few days.
Scheduled swap from the Boeing 777-200ER for the summer?

Yes, Saudia did swap from B772 to B744 for Sri Lanka and Pakistan operation in mid-Winter 2014. Also their Summer 2015 operation to Colombo still be used by B744, but Saudia is reducing frequency of Colombo flights from 5 to 4 weekly in Summer 2015. There are only three B744s (326 seater) are left in the Saudia fleet for regular passenger operation under Saudi Registration.

Currently Saudia and Cathay Pacific Cargo are the only B747 operators out of Colombo.

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President is on 4R-ALL today






President Maithripala Sirisena left for China on a four day official visit a short while ago.

He left on board Flight UL 868 at 1.30pm from Bandaranaike International Airport.

Sirisena will be welcomed at Beijing Airport by Deputy Foreign Minister of China. The official ceremony to welcome president Sirisena will be held Thursday (26) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing with the presence of Xi Jinping, the President of People’s Republic of China.

The president will hold talks with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and other leaders of China.

He was accompanied by a delegation of 30.

I am happy current president don't use the special plane for presidential entourages. Any idea if the Ontime performance of SriLankan flights has improved after MR left the government?

There are some positive comments about SriLankan flights on Skytrax but SriLankan has to give good regular maintanance for the aircraft. It seems to be 4R-ALC has a poor cabin. May be that's why it's currently getting a maintanance in the Colombo aircraft hangar.

4R-MRF at DAC http://www.globalaircraftimages.com/..._newest_4R-MRF

UL4502 / ALK4502 is flying from Dhaka to CMB, an usual Mihin route. Must be the result of the "merger"

And there are always such contradictory reports about the crew. Why can't we be consistent?

Me too surprised that the today's CMB-DAC-CMB flight operated by UL4501/2 onboard 4R-ALG. Normally UL use the flight 4### for the seasonal flights i.e. Recently UL flew Chengdu and Hangzhou with flight number 4###. It seems to be 4R-MRD is on the C-Check and 4R-MRE is in the Hangar for the engine change. That's a reason today Mihin's Sharjah flight cancelled due to shortage of aircraft. I spoke to one of the crew member who said 4R-ALG was carrying today 11J/241Y for the UL4502 DAC-CMB flight. I think UL has to take over the Dhaka route if the demand for business class consistanly do well. In 2000/2001 UL was flying twise a weekly Dhaka nonstop flights with A332s. Arjuna Ranathunga said to media, they will release the report about the merger of SriLankan/Mihin Lanka on the 31/3/2015.

Here's an interesting story I found from 2013. Relevant, now that Mattala is lying idle:

Spain's €1bn white elephant airport could be yours for just €100m - Telegraph, UK 7.8.13

By Andrew Trotman

The first private international airport in Spain that turned into one of the country's biggest white elephants is being sold off for just €100m.

The airport at Ciudad Real in La Mancha cost €1.1bn to build but was closed in April 2012 after just four years in operation when its management company fell into receivership.

Flights into the site stopped in December 2011 when low-cost airline Vueling withdrew its last route.

Now the judge overseeing the administration of the airport has ruled that it should be sold off. However, anyone buying the site will also have to pay off €529m of debt.

Creditors include savings banks, Air Nostrum and Air Berlin, as well as nearby residents whose homes were bought in order to build the airport.

The airport, 100 miles south of Madrid, has barely been used and boasts a runway long enough to land an Airbus A380 - the world's largest airliner.

Ten million passengers a year were expected to pass through its 28,000 sq ft terminal. But It opened during one of the worst recessions ever seen, with Spain particularly hard-hit.

Caja Castilla La Mancha, which was believed to have held a 70pc stake in the airport, was the first of the country's local savings banks to fail.

The official bankruptcy report for the airport states: "The loans taken out were enough to cover the construction phase but no thought was given to the investment needed to make the airport function as a business.

"The construction itself of the airport provided the first profit for the investors because they signed contracts with their own construction companies."

Santiago Moreno, a spokesman for the socialist PSOE party that controlled the regional government at the time, told the BBC: "Expert studies commissioned by the airport investors said it would create 6,000 jobs and a boom for the economy. There would have been a before and after for Ciudad Real."

In a humiliating twist, earlier this year the three presenters of Top Gear visited the empty terminal building and raced their cars on the closed runway.

When the report on abuse of power by the management of the Airline is published (it needs to be made public) - it will be clear what kind of people have been running the Airline.

"They don't know what they don't know" - a comment from a member of the IOSA Audit team. Sums things up perfectly.

The concept of people management is completely missing. I wish I could publish a letter I have from the HR department at UL. You would be shocked at the contents.

There is a culture of impunity and zero accountability at the Airline. People are doing things because they know they can get away with it.

When good people are continually treated badly, see things falling apart around them and are dealing with incompetent, unqualified management day in and day out their motivation will be zero. That will show in the way they do their job. You can't blame them.

I'd like to see how many experienced crew have left the Airline in the last 3-4 years. I'll bet it's a large number.

It is a charter flight operation.