-
SriLankan Airlines in the context of the country’s financial meltdown
by
Whither the national airline? With the country embroiled in a financial meltdown of unprecedented proportions, on Wednesday, July 20, 2022, Parliament confirmed Ranil Wickremesinghe as the nation’s eighth Executive President by a clear margin. One of the many challenges facing the new President is the future of the state-owned national carrier, SriLankan Airlines. A perennially…
-
The USA invents the airline
by
The birth of airlines in the USA The first non-stop trans-Atlantic flight actually took place in 1919 when two English flyers, John Alcock and Arthur Brown, flew a modified Vickers Vimy bomber from Newfoundland, Canada to County Galway, on the west coast of Ireland. While this won them both knighthoods and a handsome cash prize,…
-
Pan Am
by
Pan American and flying boat era While the Big Four were connecting the continental USA from coast to coast, Juan Trippe and Lindbergh were concentrating on the overseas routes. They persuaded the US government to grant them a virtual monopoly on international routes and set out to build Pan Am into a giant airline. Their…
-
Looking back to the roots – the start of the world’s airlines
by
Imperial Airways and the colonial airlines Europe in the 1920s was still reeling from the devastation of the Great War. With their treasuries emptied, a whole generation of youth dead or wounded, societies in turmoil and trust in leaders at an all time low, the governments of the day turned to aviation to try and…
-
The Wright Brothers and the Miracle of Flight
by
How it all began 17 December 1903 is a date that changed the future of mankind. On that cold winter’s day, on a desolate beach in a little known corner of America two bicycle mechanics, Wilbur and Orville Wright, made the world’s first sustained and controlled flight in a powered heavier-than-air machine. To call the…
-
Tired of COVID let’s talk about the weather
by
The Monsoon – a basic guide “And then the rains came….” Which they seem to have done last night in Colombo – the Southwest monsoon making an on-time arrival. The Southwest Monsoon is one of the most interesting meteorological events in the world. It is also, literally, the single biggest indicator of economic performance for…
-
End of the runway for my beloved A380?
by
The demise of the ‘Uber Plane’ In June 2019 this column asked “Who killed the A380?”. By then it was obvious that Airbus’s flagship was not a sales success, and its eventual demise was only a matter of time. However this writer predicted that the aircraft would probably fly on for ‘at least 15 years’.…
