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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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The ‘end of the beginning’?
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Will vaccines be the ‘silver bullet’ that restores the travel industry? The first death attributed to a ‘novel coronavirus’ named COVID-19 occurred on January 10, 2020. The first case detected outside China was confirmed in Bangkok, Thailand on January 13– just three days later. The day before that, Chinese scientists had released the genetic sequence…
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Aviation’s worst year is far from over
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It all started off so well. Many airlines were coming off a record year of travel in 2019, oil prices had been stable, and the world just loved traveling. Emirates, one of the fastest-growing airlines of the last few years, recorded its most profitable quarter ever, from January to March 2020 with its fleet of…
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Domestic and Regional travel shows green shoots
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Will domestic travel save the airlines? Nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic, good news in the travel sector is still hard to find. Despite the rollout of vaccines international traffic continues to be virtually at a standstill, with a -72.3% degradation in the calendar year to date, according to newly released International Air Transport Association…
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Max Redux
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Boeing 737MAX flies again The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), the agency that regulates the US aviation industry, finally re-certified the Boeing 737 MAX – deeming it safe to carry passengers – on November 20, 2020, by issuing Airworthiness Directive US-2020-24-02. This follows a comprehensive review of the aircraft, its systems and pilot-training requirements, which took…
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‘Avro’ HS 748
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Alliot Verdon Roe was another of the world’s almost-forgotten aviation pioneers. In 1909, only six years after the Wright brothers first flew in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, young Roe designed, built and flew the first British aircraft in Hackney, near London. A.V. Roe and his brother Humphrey formed the Avro aircraft company in 1910. Their…
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A winter of discontent
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A winter of discontent? The world’s beleaguered travel industry had a glimmer of hope last week. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced a 90% success rate in tests of their vaccine for COVID-19. The company added that it would continue widespread testing, and hopes to have a usable product within a few months. The successful deployment of…
