CHARM OFFENSIVE - Orient Aviation

n e w s f e a t u r eThe small but state-of-the-art fleet of risingSouth Asia carrier, SriLankan Airlines, mayhave been decimated when rebels carriedout a bloody raid on Colombo airport inSriLankan in July, but the re-building hasbegun. TOM BALLANTYNE reports.DOWN BUTNOT OUTGut-wrenching. That’s how SriLankanAirlines chief executive, Peter Hill,described his feelings as reality sankin during the pre-dawn hours of July 24. Hillwas asleep at his Colombo home when a rebelTamil Tiger suicide squad launched a daringand devastating 3.30am mortar attack on thecity’s Banda-ranaike International Airport.“I was awakened by a phone call at 3.50amtelling me the news. By 5am we were all atthe airport coming to terms with what hadhappened,” he told Orient Aviation.The scene that welcomed Hill and his staffas they surveyed the aftermath of the bloodyraid that left 21 people dead, resembled a clipfrom a Hollywood war film – but this was forreal. All that remained of one Airbus A340 wasa charred and smoking hulk. Two A330s werealso destroyed and three other jets – anotherA340 and two A320s – were badly damaged.In one fell swoop, two years of sweat andtoil by management and staff in a bid to revivethe fortunes of Sri Lanka’s national flag carrierhad been shattered.Forty percent owned by Middle Eastoperator Emirates Airline, the fleet ofSriLankan’s proud little carrier was cut in half,reduced to four A330s and two A340s. Oneof the A340s narrowly escaped the attack.When the raiders struck, it was approachingSri Lanka on a flight from Australia but wasdiverted to Madras.The event was the most traumatic andchallenging in the airline’s 20-year history. ButHill said he was proud of the way his staffreacted and worked with the military whileunder heavy fire to evacuate the terminalbuilding. “All of our passengers were evacuatedswiftly and, in the circumstances, veryeffectively from the terminal. No-one wasinjured.”None of the dead, which included theSriLankan chief executive Peter Hill:gut-wrenching experienceTamil suicide squad, were airline passengersor SriLankan employees.SriLankan Airlines may be down but itis a long way from out. Little more than amonth later, Hill and his team have alreadysucceeded in building a solid base on which torebuild the carrier’s business. In August, the sixremaining aircraft were operating 60% of theschedule and in September that is expectedto rise to 70%.“We hope to have a third A340 back intoservice by the first week of September. It wasdamaged in the raid, but is being repaired bySriLankan engineers under the supervision ofAirbus,” said Hill.“Two A320s were also damaged and itappears that it may be too uneconomic torepair one of the jets. The other one is repairableand we expect to have it back in serviceby the end of October, which would increaseour fleet to eight.”SriLankan Airlines was an innocent victimof the attack and it brought chaos to itsnetwork. Short-haul flights to India, normallyoperated by A320s, have been stopped temporarily.Services to Dakar and Karachi in Pakistan,Sydney, Australia, and to Paris, Berlin andStockholm in Europe also have been halted.At the same time, Hill has created twooperational hubs at Dubai and Singapore, us-SriLankan Airlines: half its Airbus fleet was wiped out as the aircraft sat on the tarmac26 | Orient Aviation | September 2001