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SriLankan Airlines in the context of the country’s financial meltdown
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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…
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Airlines in the Maldives
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Airlines of South Asia – Part 5 The Maldives Air Maldives With the launch of scheduled flights to the Maldives (Maldive Islands) archipelago by Air Ceylon in 1967, the tourism industry to these idyllic islands was born. Realizing the vital importance of an air service to their small nation, the government of the Maldives took…
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Air Ceylon
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Airlines of South Asia – Part 4 Air Ceylon As already mentioned in this series, Colombo was the first overseas destination of Tata Air Lines in 1938. As independence from Britain approached after the Second World War, the Government of Ceylon decided to set up its own airline. Named Air Ceylon and equipped with three…
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PIA and Biman
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Airlines of South Asia – Part 3 Pakistan and Bangladesh With the creation of Pakistan in 1947 came a conundrum. The newly formed nation was physically split into two parts, the larger western portion comprising the Sindh, North West frontier province, Punjab and Baluchistan. This was separated from the eastern portion, which was primarily the…
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Indian Airlines – a regional giant
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Part 2 – Indian Airlines The government of India nationalised domestic airlines in 1953 to set up two state-owned carriers. This was in keeping with global trends, the British government having established two state-owned airlines to serve its transport needs, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) for international flights and British European Airways, (BEA) for regional…
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Air India – the pioneer of Asian aviation
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The Birth of airlines in the South Asian region Part 1 – Air India South Asia as we know it today, is a recent invention. A hundred years ago, it was simply India, or “British India”. The subcontinent was united under British rule, with a patchwork of “princely states” enjoying nominal independence, but functioning under…
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The Decade Ahead – Part 2
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My latest column on FT was published recently – and is republished below
