The ‘Pot of Gold’

Or is it a Private Public Partnership (PPP)?

Air Lanka when it was established in 1979, was formed under the Private Companies Ordinance to be free from interference from the political fraternity except the Executive President J R Jayewardene.

After a promising start, the airline has now, after 44 years, regressed gradually into a fully political Government entity with a Board of Directors who are not airline savvy. We hear that there are plans afoot to split all Sri Lankan’s departments into profitable and unprofitable groups and attempt to sell off the profitable ones, such as Ground Handing and Catering departments to foreign investors.

Eighty-seven bi- lateral International Air Service Agreements (ASA’s) has been signed by the Ceylonese/ Sri Lankan Government through the years (According to the Civil Aviation Authority Sri Lanka) and are invaluable to any organisation that invests in SriLankan Airlines.

Air Ceylon was started in 1948 even before independence from Britain was granted. Therefore Ceylon/Sri Lanka inherited all the bi- lateral Air Service Agreements signed by Britain as an original signatory of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Chicago Convention of 1944. The countries in alphabetical order are:

Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guyana, Hong Kong (China), Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Italy, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon Luxemburg, Macau (China), Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Myanmar, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Seychelles, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The ASA’s are varying in frequencies per week (FPW) to unlimited and involving various freedom of the air transport and negotiable.

There lies the true value of the once proud airline which holds the record of being the first Asian Carrier to fly to Australia by an all Asian crew.

These ASAs could be developed into active air services with the participation of an aggressive marketing team with help from our diplomatic services, if only the airline’s marketing division had the vision and ran an aggressive campaign to spread its wings. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. Unfortunately, that link is airline marketing. These international ASA’s are between governments and are not available to the ‘run of the mill’, fly by night operators but attracted airlines like Australian National Airways (ANA), KLM, BOAC, UTA and SIA in the past and allowed Emirates Airlines to operate to and from New York and Amsterdam piggybacking on Sri Lanka’s traffic right agreements. Remember that no investor would get involved with our airline because they love us.

“The freedoms of the air, also called five freedoms of air transport, are a set of commercial aviation rights granting a country’s airlines the privilege to enter and land in another country’s airspace. They were formulated as a result of disagreements over the extent of aviation liberalisation in the Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944, known as the Chicago Convention.[1] The United States had called for a standardized set of separate air rights to be negotiated between states, but most other countries were concerned that the size of the U.S. airlines would dominate air travel if there were not strict rules. The freedoms of the air are the fundamental building blocks of the international commercial aviation route network. The use of the terms “freedom” and “right” confers entitlement to operate international air services only within the scope of the multilateral and bilateral treaties (air services agreements) that allow them.

The first two freedoms concern the passage of commercial aircraft through foreign airspace and airports, while the other freedoms are about carrying people, mail and cargo internationally. The first through fifth freedoms are officially enumerated by international treaties, especially the Chicago Convention. Several other freedoms have been added, and although most are not officially recognised under broadly applicable international treaties, they have been agreed to by a number of countries. The lower-numbered freedoms are relatively universal while the higher-numbered ones are rarer and more controversial. Liberal open skies agreements often represent the least restrictive form of air services agreements and may include many if not all freedoms. They are relatively rare, but examples include the recent single aviation markets established in the European Union (European Common Aviation Area), and between Australia and New Zealand.”

In Summary

Freedoms of the air apply to aviation. The terms ‘freedom’ and ‘right’ are a shorthand way of referring to the type of international services permitted between two or more countries.  Even when such services are allowed by countries, airlines may still face restrictions to accessing them by the terms of treaties or for other reasons.

–– Guwan Seeya