SriLankan CEO Capt. Ratwatte Ditches Cadet Pilots’ Dreams

May 4, 2016

Six Mihin Lanka Cadet Pilots whose flight training was abruptly terminated by the newly appointed CEO Capt.Suren Ratwatte of SriLankan Airlines, have officially written to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe seeking his intervention to restart their programme.

Suren Ratwatte

CEO Capt. Ratwatte who secured his job through the means of a nepotistic appointment found fault with the recruitment and assessment criteria used by Mihin Lanka that selected the students of this First Officer programme.

The assessment criteria which was part of the cadet pilot’s recruitment process was conducted by the Alpha Aviation Group whose services had already been used in the past to assess over 70 current pilots flying for Sri Lankan Airlines. This was way before Capt.Ratwatte joined the airline.

The cadets who commenced their training programme on the 10th of July 2015 completed their ground school training on the 28th September 2015 which was incidentally three days prior to CEO Capt. Ratwatte joining Sri Lankan Airlines.

Thereafter their simulator training was halted and they were informed that they were going to be reassessed once again by a different company.

The cadets who had already signed contracts with Mihin Lanka had made payments for the course which was to eventually cost them over Rs 8 million.

Some cadets had even obtained bank loans for this purpose after the contract was signed.

It is yet to be established what the real reason was for CEO Capt.Ratwatte to have made such a decision.

However it is a known fact that eight other cadet pilots who are sons of current senior pilots of Sri Lankan Airlines are awaiting to be enlisted into the national carrier.

We publish below the letter in full which the cadet pilot batch sent to Prime Minister’s Office:

Hon. Prime Minister,

Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

Prime Minister’s Office

No: 58, Sir Ernest De Silva Mawatha,

Colombo 07.

Dear Honourable Prime Minister,

CADET PILOT BATCH 05 OF MIHIN LANKA 

We write with reference to the above subject matter and hence initially give you an insight of the entire development of the situation initially. As per the initial advertisement published on local newspapers upon receipt of numerous applications from eligible candidates the initial interview was held on the 07th May, 2015. Upon successful screening from the first interview, the selected candidates were subjected to the secondary evaluation carried out by a very reputed Alpha Aviation Group.

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