i had to appoint people who will tow the line like the present capt druvi perera the brother of kavan perera the CEO of the scandalous golden key, and capt nanda nadharajah.both are good players and continue my mess at flight operations by employing expartriates pilots instead of employing our own sri lankan pilots who lost their employment due to the down turn in india,a total violation of the air navigation regulations 280. thankfully the director general civil aviation is also another puppet so he is not taking any action.

i did looby to stay in my post but it is only human. i am now restricted to service delivery which has resulted in the service decline and i am also banned from flying VVIP flights as i messed up a flight with the prez on board as we dropped the national flag on the runway in UK. my jounior was not holding it hard enough. anyway i took the fall for all this.

i have made mistakes and i continue to make mistakes but there is nobody willing to replace me, therefore i am stuck between a rock and a hard place.
i hope UL survives this time around expecially with the new war with OMAN authorities.one thing is for sure if they close their airspace we our done for good.

but leave all this aside COME FLY WITH US………………..

Mahinda

By Kelum Bandara
Cash-strapped airline Mihin Lanka’s former CEO Sajin Vaas Gunawardane was appointed as the UPFA’s Galle district organizer by President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday. Mr. Gunawardane is also a Presidential Advisor.
The President recently gave a number of electoral organizer appointments, mostly to UNP MPs who switched allegiance to the Government. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama was appointed as the organizer for the Kotte electorate.
Meanwhile, Non-Cabinet Nation Building Minister Susantha Punchinilame is slated to be appointed as the organizer of the Seruwila electorate in the Trincomalee district.

Mihin Lanka lost Rs. 3.2 billion when he was the chairman of ‘Mihin Air.’
-Daily Mirror

Ex Mihin Lanka boss Sajin Vass Gunawardane is tipped to be the next Chief Ministerial candidate of the UPFA for the Southern Province. The Southern Provincial council is to be dissolved soon, political sources said. President Mahinda Rajapaksa and few senior ministers have held a meeting last week. At the meeting a minister had suggested to the President to appoint new faces to the Southern Province and mooted Gunawardane’s name as the Chief Ministerial candidate as he has roots in the province.

The national carrier, SriLankan airlines, was plunged in to further chaos this week with Mihin Lanka CEO and Presidential confidant, Sajin Vaas Gunawardene claiming that his budget airline Mihin Lanka and SriLankan should work together in the future.

A mass exodus of SriLankan staff was temporarily halted last week when SriLankan Board Chairman and business tycoon Harry Jayawardene assured the airline`s staff that there will be no merger with the government owned Mihin in the future. With the news that Emirates will be pulling out of the management of SriLankan in March this year, many experienced staff resigned in what was seen as a serious threat to the continuation of the national carrier.

Already 20 pilots have left the national carrier and 10 are contemplating to resign. However, a degree of confidence was instilled in the staff when Harry Jayawardene addressed them last week and assured that there will be no interference from the government in the running of the airline. One of the main assurances given to SriLankan staff was that there will be no merger with Mihin Lanka or any involvement of its controversial CEO Sajin Vaas Gunawardene in the operations of the airline.

However, SriLankan sources revealed to The Bottom Line that the staff was once more gravely concerned by recent statements made by Gunawardene which envisioned a greater cooperation between the two airlines.

The verbal heroics of Sajin have posed fresh challenges to Mr. Jayawardena and it is likely that the business tycoon will give further reassurances. Analysts said that Sajin`s comments undermined the assurance given by Mr. Jayawardena to SriLankan staff last week which in fact boosted the moral of the team at the airline.

Sajin, along with Board of Investment Chairman Dhammika Perera were instrumental in terminating the management contract with Emirates which saw the end of a 10 year partnership between the SriLankan and the Dubai based global airline. Relations between the President and SriLankan plummeted with the alleged refusal of the airline to grant 35 seats to the Presidential entourage returning from London in December.

?The President was led to believe that SriLankan refused him five seats, when the actual request was for 35 seats,? said an official at SriLankan who wished not to be named. The controversy in December led to the cancellation of the work permit of SriLankan CEO Peter Hill and the eventual pull out of Emirates from SriLankan.

Asked of the potential sharing of passengers as well as SriLankan foregoing Indian routes to Mihini, as stated by Sajin Vaas in a recent media interview, the official at SriLankan said that it is impossible to do so. ?SriLankan and Mihin work on two different tiers. It is impossible to share passengers between a stand alone legacy carrier and a budget airline. How can you transfer a passenger who has booked on a legacy carrier with all its expectations to a budget airline which basically offers nothing more than a seat?? said the source stating that there will be no cost structural basis for a codeshare between two such airlines.

It has been revealed that the President has expressed his desire to see SriLankan and Mihin Lanka work amicably in the future. President Mahinda Rajapaksa`s brother-in-law Nishantha Wickramesinghe, a board member of SriLankan, has indicated the thinking of the top to senior SriLankan staff. However, Harry Jayawardene who had earlier assured his staff of complete independence from government interference in the running of the airline, has strongly opposed any merger with the budget airline.

Meanwhile many at SriLankan are now looking to Ports and Aviation Minister Chamal Rajapaksa to ensure that Mihin Lanka CEO does not interfere in the operations of the airline. It has been reliably reported that the President`s brother and Sajin Vaas have not seen eye to eye in the whole deal which saw the exit of Emirates from the management of SriLankan.

Reports quoted a loss of Rs 1.4 billion made by Mihin in the first year of operations with a Rs 700 million being owned to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation alone. The budget airline which operates two aircraft on a wet lease is financed in part by Lankaputhra bank, headed by Sajin Vass Gunewardane`s father.