SriLankan Airlines Refuses To Accept Flight Attendants Union’s Legitimacy

May 13, 2016

The management of SriLankan Airlines has yesterday decided not to accept nor deal with the current ‘Flight Attendants Union’ of its national carrier.

As Colombo Telegraph exposed earlier, it was not the Flight Attendants Union, but a group of ordinary Cabin Crew Members that the management of the national carrier had been dealing with over the last five months.

The pretentious group headed by Cabin Manager Adrian Cramer went on to sign official letters claiming to be the officially appointed Executive Committee of the FAU, sign and encash cheques and even scheduled meetings with various management officials of the airline.

This was despite them been forewarned by the former President of the FAU Sidath Dedigama, who vehemently protested and even went on to emphasize that their unlawful takeover at a sparsely attended Annual General Meeting, would be fundamentally illegal. This was as an election according to their own constitution was not held prior to their takeover.

Writing officially to Cabin Manager Adrian Cramer on the 11th May 2014, the Head of Human Resources of Sri Lankan Airlines Pradeepa Kekulawala stated that the airline’s management will no longer be dealing with them in any official capacity.

Despite Colombo Telegraph exposing this from the inception and publishing a series of articles on this topic, it took the Chairman of SriLankan Airlines Ajith Dias and CEO Capt. Suren Ratwatte almost five months to act based on the facts presented.

Further after the airline’s official intimation, a newsletter was inserted into all 1200 plus Flight Attendant lockers containing disparaging remarks about the Chairman Ajit Dias, CEO Capt.Suren Ratwatte, Head of Flight Operations Capt. Rajind Ranatunga and Head of Human Resources Pradeepa Kekulawala.

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