Chandrasena appointed as CEO in 2011 without due process, PCoI told

The then SriLankan airlines chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe had in 2011 appointed Kapila Chandrasena as its CEO at an emergency board meeting without following a proper procedure, SriLankan airlines current Regional Head of Europe and Americas, Manoj Vaas Gunawardena informed the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on SriLankan airlines, SriLankan Catering and Mihin Lanka yesterday.

Mr. Gunawardena served as the CEO of SriLankan airlines from 2008 to 2011 prior to the appointment of Kapila Chandrasena as CEO in 2011.

He told the Commission that Mr. Wickremasinghe had notified the Board of Directors about Mr. Gunawardene's resignation from his post in 2011, though no such a request was made by him that year.
According to the SriLankan airlines manual, a CEO candidate must have Bachelors, Masters or a relevant business-oriented degree, with more than 15 years of post-qualifying experience in the commercial aviation industry, including knowledge in engineering and airline management.

He informed the Commission that before he was appointed as the CEO of SriLankan, an interview was carried out with Director General of Civil Aviation Authority and there was a long term process of appointing a CEO.

He also informed the Commission that all the required guidelines were followed when appointing him in the CEO in 2008 and according to his knowledge none of them were followed when appointing Kapila Chandrasena.

Mr. Gunawardane said after his resignation he was appointed in the position of Promotions Director of Europe which was based in London. (Yoshitha Perera.

This Clearly explains yet another blunder by GoSL and the continued decline of the National Carrier. Incompetent idiot being made CEO!

No wonder Middle Eastern Carriers are far well off compared to UL! Take Qatar Airways and AirAsia for example, they've had qualified CEO's running them, thus being where they are right now and being being role models for other airlines!

UL would've certainly be in par with the rest of the "bigger airlines" in the world if we still had Peter Hill as our CEO and if GoSL didn't interfere so much

The full story isn't being told.

Manoj refused to sign off on the $2.3 Billion aircraft deal. He was sidelined.

Kapila was brought in as an "enabler" and the deal went ahead.

Kapila was just a rubber stamp for whatever the Rajapakses or their cronies wanted.

Manoj got a nice job in London paying big bucks for doing nothing! I believe he is still there.

SriLankan Airlines ends Hong Kong service in Oct 2018

SriLankan Airlines in late-October 2018 is ending service to Hong Kong, as the airline schedules last Colombo – Hong Kong flight on 27OCT18. The airline previously filed 5 weekly flights with Airbus A320 aircraft during winter 2018/19 season.

Previously filed schedule:

UL892 CMB0900 – 1700HKG 32A x257
UL898 CMB1240 – 2040HKG 32A 5

UL899 HKG0200 – 0510CMB 32A 6
UL893 HKG1810 – 2120CMB 32A x257

UL is becoming a shrinking airline.

i'm not agree.. if you load factor is not good why you should continue in any route.. just make your lost numbers high???

let's utilized this air craft to some other route where UL can make some more money..

probably an indian route... whether we like or not India is our prime market for tourism.. and it is growing day by day and we should explore it further by connecting more indian destinations...

as we all know lot of Indians prefer CMB as their transit than any other... let's capitalize all these potentials

FOUR STAR RECIPIENTS OF THE 2019 OFFICIAL AIRLINE RATINGS™

Read more: http://m.digitaljournal.com/pr/3950519#ixzz5S5aCZtip

FOUR-STAR MAJOR REGIONAL AIRLINES

· SriLankan Airlines

· Caribbean Airlines

· Fiji Airways

· Gulf Air

· Hong Kong Airlines

· Jet Airways

· Malindo Air

· Middle East Airlines

· Oman Air

· Philippine Airlines

· Royal Brunei Airlines

· Royal Jordanian Airlines

Actually SriLankan is the last in the list. Anyway, they've made it there at least, but still makes no difference with all the problems within the airline management.

Good discussion about what is happening in Srilankan airlines.
Srilankan is losing Indian market too. It is facing tough competition from Indigo, SpiceJet and soon from Vistara.

Well all I can say is that UL is going from bad to worse
Axing HKG is simply stupid as it would lead to CX being the sole operator on the sector.
Being in the Industry, I've seen and handled a good volume of Air Freight from HKG and more than half of it being from UL with CX not being far behind.

The problem though is the fact that HKG was downgraded from a A332/A333 whuch is why UL lost a good fraction of its Cargo volume due to them having to reduce capacity, mind you even they operated via BKK they did have a substantial amount of Cargo coming in manly from Mainland China

These idiots are handing over HKG on a platter to CX along with its Pax and Cargo

Well done!


Also to add that when Vistara begins ops to CMB from DEL, many would chose them over unreliable Air India and definitely overlook UL as its schedule to DEL is absolutely horrible

IndiGo on the other hand have already have already started to give UL a run for their money.
Tickets to MAA were high as 35K just before IndiGo made its entry to CMB and was subsequently slashed to a more affordable fare between 18-23K

UL have profited much from MAA and i'm glad that IndiGo's entry showed UL that if they don't get it right, they'd loose the Indian Market as well.

I fully agree with you Aaqib

Sri Lankan Airlines may withdraw the flight operations from Visakhapatnam Airport

Read more at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...campaign=cppst

Modernisation of fleet: UL CEO kept in the dark
SriLankan probe
September 25, 2018, 11:32 pm

By Shyam Nuwan Ganewatte

Former Chief Executive Officer of SriLankan Airlines Manoj Vass Gunawardena, giving evidence before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry probing irregularities of SriLankan Airlines, Sri Lankan Catering and Mihin Air, yesterday, said correspondence with a company named Ameration Corporation on modernising the airline fleet had not been made available to him.

Gunawardena told the Commission that there had been an exchange of letters between the national carrier and Ameration Corporation and such correspondence was not made available to The former SriLankan CEO said it had been his responsibility to make executive level decisions and, therefore, he should have been informed of the correspondence on modernising the fleet.

He said he had been able to have a look at the said correspondence only in June and July 2010.

The correspondence with the Amerasion Corporation took place on January 7, February 15, 17 and 19 and on April 10, 2010.

The correspondence had taken place among the then Director General of Public Enterprises B. M. S. Batagoda, Secretary to the Ports and Shipping Ministry Ranjith de Silva and Chairman Sri Lankan Airlines Nishantha Wickramasinghe.

Gunawardena said that though he had 36-years-of experience in the field of aviation, he had never heard of a company named Amerasion Corporation. Previously, SriLankan had not dealt with a company by that name, he added.

The commission began sittings around 10.00 am, yesterday, presided over by its Chairman retired Supreme Court Judge Anil Gooneratne.

"The both way passenger traffic is only 40-50%, hence is not viable"quite similar to Mihin Lanka then, where most of their flights were either "half full or empty"
Unfortunately GAN is also performing the same way
Pathetic!

How is the CMB-HYD performing? and also would Goa (GOI) be a better option rather than VTZ?

Qatar Airways has increased DOH-CMB frequency with additional flight QR 656/657 operated by Airbus A 320