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Baggage blunder on first flight to Mattala
View(s):Baggage blunder on first flight to Mattala
With much fanfare, a group from the United States arrived in the first SriLankan Airlines commercial flight to land at the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA).
TV cameras focused on them whilst the Kandyan dancers who gyrated to the drumbeats were watched by thousands of Sri Lankans during the live coverage. The guests, including a few journalists, were on a ten-day free tour of Sri Lanka with all expenses paid.
When the fanfare at Mattala was over, the group was driven to a luxury hotel on the outer fringes of the Yala National Park. They were too tired to go for a luncheon event at Ranminithenna, Sri Lanka’s Hollywood, since the opening ceremonies had gone on well past 2 p.m. It is then that the group realised something was missing, at least for some of them. It was their personal baggage.
The group of mostly expatriate Sri Lankans from Los Angeles, Washington DC and New York among other cities had all flown into Mattala via Dubai. At their boarding points, some wanted to interline their baggage to their final destination, Mattala. According to International Air Transport Association (IATA) procedures, an airport code printed on a baggage tag is attached to their unaccompanied luggage. A counterfoil of this tag is given to the passengers so they may collect their luggage at the point of arrival.
For a group that arrived at the Kennedy International Airport in New York, airline staff checking in passengers to a Dubai bound flight found there was no airport code for Mattala. Some passengers said it was the new code HRI.
With the airport opening over, the group was given a conducted tour of the hill country and the east. In attendance to look after their needs was an official of the Sri Lanka Embassy in Washington DC.
The visitors were three days into their programme when some of their baggage arrived. From Dubai, the luggae had been sent to the Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake and transported by road. Until then, at least a couple of them wore borrowed clothes from relatives in Sri Lanka. The Yanks had purchased clothing to last until their baggage arrived. No one still knows who caused the blunder.
Weerawansa wants to question Jayasundera
Loquacious Minister Wimal Weerawansa, who has acquired a reputation for his biting criticism of anything he dislikes, was at it again.
At the Deyata Kirula exhibition, he opened a booth of the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau (CECB) which comes under his ministry’s purview. He then decided to walk around different booths.
When he came to the one set up by the Ministry of Finance, officials invited him to walk in and see what they have achieved. “Thank you for the invitation. Is your Secretary (Dr. P.B. Jayasundera) there?,” he asked. The officials told him he was not in.
Weerawansa said he had a question to ask the Secretary. Since he is not there I will move ahead, he added. Recently, Weerawansa lashed out at Jayasundera for the economic ills of the country.
CM prefers meal at chena cultivation
Sabaragamuwa Chief Minister Maheepala Herath was on his way to the Deyata Kirula exhibition in Ampara last Tuesday. En route, several friends contacted him to offer lunch. Politely declining the invitations, the Chief Minister opted to stop at a chena cultivation situated by the Gal Oya river.
There he had kurakkan talapa (a food made from finger millet) with anama (a curry mixed with several vegetables) and a freshly boiled plate of manioc.
Notable quotes at wedding of minister’s daughter
Several VIPs, including President Mahinda Rajapksa, attended the wedding of the daughter of Minister Janaka Bandara Tennakoon at the Colombo Hilton last week. Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was seen having a chat with Sports Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage.
UPFA Parliamentarians Namal Rajapaksa and Udith Lokubandara also joined the chat which centred on appointing suitable persons to sports associations. Gotabaya said it was good to appoint dynamic persons with management skills. “Here are the youth. We can get their support,” he said pointing at the two young MPs.
“Uncle Gota, you had two monitoring MPs. One has been shot and is still being treated at the ICU. If this happens, the remaining ones also may go,” remarked Namal jocularly provoking laughter. Power and Energy Minister Pavithra Wanniaratchchi arrived late and apologised to Minister Tennekoon. In walked Dinesh Gunawardena, Minister of Water Supply and Drainage.
“Why so late?” asked Tennekoon. Gunawardena pointed his finger at his colleague Pavithra and said there was a power interruption in the Kotte area. He had to wait till it was restored to get dressed. “The supply of water follows only after power is restored,” he remarked.
Ranil, CBK in Galle: Mahinda wishes b’ day boy ‘many happy returns’
Opposition UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe celebrated his 64th birthday last Sunday. One of the earliest well-wisher’s was none other than President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The President telephoned Wickremesinghe who was in Galle that morning to wish him a happy birthday whereupon Wickremesinghe told him “your girlfriend is also here”, a reference to the presence of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga who was also in Galle.
Both Wickremesinghe and Kumaratunga attended a Question and Answer session at a book festival that was held instead of the Galle Literary Festival which has been cancelled this year. The presence of the two in Galle fuelled speculation of a political alliance between the UNP and a section of the SLFP.
President Rajapaksa was not unaware of these rumours and was somewhat interested in making some gentle inquiries to know if there was any truth in them. He may have also secretly wished Wickremesinghe ‘many happy returns’ – to the opposition.
Sabotage suspected in internet slowdown
A leading website has reported that Wednesday’s internet slowdown in parts of Africa, West Asia (the Middle East) and Asia may have been the result of sabotage, rather than the sort of accident that usually knocks out submarine cables.
At most times, a submarine cable gets cut, because someone dropped anchor in the wrong place. In the case of the cut-off near the Egyptian coast, it seems that more deliberate action may have been involved.
According to the Associated Press, on Wednesday the Egyptian Navy detained three scuba divers in a dinghy near Alexandria. They were “cutting the undersea cable” of local telco Telecom Egypt. This was confirmed on the Navy’s Facebook page. Egyptian news agency MENA identified the affected cable as SMW4: the same one whose cutting caused an internet slowdown in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
MENA quoted officials as saying services would be “back 100 per cent on Thursday morning” via the use of “alternative feeds”. Telecom Egypt will apparently bear the cost of the repairs, both of this disruption and a separate cable cut last Friday.
Incidentally, the SMW4 cable (more properly known as South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 or SEA-ME-WE 4) was also involved in a very serious outage five years ago, which cut the capacity of the main Europe-Middle East connection by 75 per cent. This one appears to have been less drastic.
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