Sri Lankan Airlines: Annoyed Pilots Kick Guild President Capt. Namal Out!

May 5, 2015 

The now annoyed members of the Pilots Guild of Sri Lankan Airlines ensured that they took matters to their hands and kicked out their existing ‘Pilots Guild’ President Capt. Namal Fernando and his entire committee at an ‘Ordinary General Meeting’ called recently. The Senior Pilots of the national carrier who spoke to Colombo Telegraph said they were ‘miffed’ that the airlines new Chairman Ajit Dias and his newly appointed ‘Board of Directors’ had continued to keep quiet after the national carrier which was probed by the government and exposed in the ‘Weliamuna Report’ had revealed some shocking details about their Flight Operations Head.

The members of Pilots Guild who had called for an OGM then replaced their Guild President Capt.Namal Fernando and handed over the reins to a new committee headed by Capt.Renuka Senanayake, Vice President Capt. Hiran Rajapaksa and Secretary Capt. Anura Abeysekara in the hope that they would run the guild in a more efficient and ethical manner.

In Lawyer J.C. Weliamuna’s damning report it was highlighted that Chief Operations Officer Capt. Druvi Perera had ordered his former Manager Training and Standards Capt. Patrick Fernando and his deputy Capt. Ranga Amadoru to lower the pass mark in order to recruit two cadet pilots who had failed to make the mark at the cadet pilot intake. Captains Fernando and Amdoru whose immediate resignations in protest of their COO’s request sent the pilots off on a ‘work to rule’ that crippled the airline further, which had to even cancel certain scheduled flights then. “Our COO Capt. Druvi Perera took off to Bahrain for a week to attend a tennis tournament his son was taking part in during a crisis situation the airline was experiencing at the time” said a Pilot. He went on to conclude “COO Capt. Druvi Perera on his arrival to Colombo from Bahrain a week later refused to meet us the Members of the Pilot’s Guild but chose to go directly for third days play of the Royal / Thomian ‘big match’ instead”.
The CCO Capt. Druvi subsequently met with the airline’s Pilots the following day to help resolve the issue.

The ‘Weliamuna Report’ also highlighted the COO Capt. Druvi’s pilot related incident on landing in Chennai where he skidded off the runway, removing the fixed runway lights which he subsequently hushed up before it was brought to light many years later. Weliamuna’s report went on to say that this incident was not even filed in the COO’s personal records.

This incident was exposed by Colombo Telegraph first and was later investigated by the Board of Inquiries who documented the full incident in their final report.                           Read More