SriLankan turmoil settled?

The man at the centre of much turmoil with pilots of the national carrier, its Flight Operations Senior Manager Capt. Milinda Ratnayake was kicked upstairs last week to bring about a settlement to the problem, when he was formally made acting Manager of Service Delivery and Security on Thursday.

Capt. Ratnayake told The Sunday Times that his new appointment proved that he had been vindicated. Pilots’ Guild president Capt. Sujith Jayasekera said that as long as Capt. Ratnayake did not get in their way they did not care where he was accommodated and they only wanted to get on with their work, but if it came to a case of Capt. Ratnayake challenging their allegations they had enough documentary evidence to prove his wrongdoings.

SriLankan also made several other top appointments last week. Ms. Manik Gunasekera was appointed Acting Head of Commercial to fill the vacancy created by the promotion of previous holder of that post Manoj Gunawardena to the position of Chief Executive Officer the previous week. Chief Pilot Captain Druvi Perera was made the acting Manager Flight Operations, to fill the vacancy created by Capt Ratnayake being promoted to Service Delivery.

The airline has also recalled Senaka Chandrasekera from retirement to be its Head of Finance once again, following the abrupt resignation of Vipula Gunatillake early this month from the position of Chief Financial Officer.

It was Mr. Chandrasekera who prepared the painstaking business plan for Mihin Air while in retirement and he initially served as its financial consultant. A few months after Mihin’s launch Mr. Chandrasekera resigned abruptly allegedly due to Mihin Lanka CEO violating the recommendations of the business plan. Its then head of Operations Capt. Nihal Goonewardena too resigned in June 2007 accusing its top brass of mismanagement.

Meanwhile the national carrier has so far chosen to keep vacant the high profile post of Head of Corporate Communications held by Chandana de Silva under the Emirates management. With the departure of the Emirates management at the end of March, Chandana too left SriLankan and joined as the Country Manager of Emirates in Sri Lanka.