Air Lanka bags two awards

Download as PDF

Air Lanka has been awarded two awards, ‘Best Company in Transport Business in 1996’ by the Chartered Institute of Transport (Sri Lanka), and a maintenance award by the French engine manufacturer CFM. PV Samson, senior manager human resources development, Air Lanka spoke to ‘Business Today’ about the awards. Whether the company is good or bad is not for us to say. It’s for outsiders to judge. We have 12 CFM engines with the airline. When we completed 100,000 hrs CFM vice president came and publicly said that the way we maintain engines is excellent and praised the engineering department.”
The evaluation committee for the Transport Award looked into ‘the systems and procedures and the level of technical skill.
Last year we won the award for best customer service. So it is not an isolated award.”
‘I must say that the first thing for us is human resources. We have so many young, dedicated, enterprising, healthy people. More than 80% of the people are less than 35 years of age. They are very committed. This large number is an asset.’
“They are well trained, a considerable amount of money is spent on training both locally and internationally. At least twice a year everybody goes for training. This is the edge we have, competence of the staff, commitment of the staff backed by technological advancement.”
The Transport Award ‘gives some confidence to everybody. The others say that we are doing the best. We have got feedback from the professionals.”
“It’s professional handling, not only human resources, marketing. communication, engineering… that marks our success.”