Sri Lankan aviation industry now seems to have passed its golden days. Air Ceylon was one of the strongest names in the aviation industries of Asia even after the World War II. However, after the independence of Sri Lanka, aviation industry started going down. Sri Lankan airline industry suffered the impacts of closed economy and the conflict between government and Tamil tigers. The number of air controller Sri Lanka has is not sufficient. They have 57 air controllers where 96 air controllers is the basic requirement. It has not been long since Sri Lanka had the air control over the Indian Ocean. However, it is the opposite.
Lanka Business Online reported:
"The air traffic industry was a British legacy, because we were part of the Empire and after the war effort we had infrastructure that was very efficient," says Nihal de Silva, a former air traffic controller and pilot.
"Soon after the war we had a brilliant bit of infrastructure. We had aerodromes, manpower and equipment."
At present Sri Lanka has 57 air traffic controllers, way short of the estimated 96 minimum cadre needed.
Another problem for Sri Lankan aviation professionals is the matter that Sri Lanka has some strict rules on using aircrafts. That is why, Sri Lankan aviation sector lacks skilled manpower as the new generation are not interested to it and there are a number of limitations too. The restriction is so strong that even a child can not play with a model aero plane. The former pilots and aviation officials think that government should be lenient on this regard giving the opportunity to the general people to know about the industry.
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basically sil lanka is a good place but full of problems
Posted by: animesh | October 5, 2007 2:10 PM | Permalink to Comment