SriLankan Airlines starts eco-friendly Green Flights

SriLankan Airlines has begun transforming its worldwide operations into environment-friendly ‘Green Flights.’ It is the first airline in South Asia to make a full and unconditional commitment to environmental conservation.

A SriLankan Airlines flight took off from Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport ( B IA) on March 21, 2009, to become the first Green Flight in the region. The flight, filled to capacity, landed in Frankfurt that evening.

SriLankan CEO Manoj Gunawardena said that the airline’s conservation efforts are driven from the bottom up within the airline, with the involvement of every employee. “It was the example set by our workforce that led us to turn SriLankan into a full-fledged ‘Green Airline’. Even our waste recycling programme is being carried out by our main employee union,” he said.

SriLankan Airlines has been trying for the past six months to turn itself into an environment-friendly company, with a variety of initiatives to reduce all types of consumption, and recycle waste products. The airline adopted a formal Environmental Policy in January, 2009, bringing all of its conservation programmes under one umbrella, and also appointed a specialised Environmental Strategy Unit to plan and execute conservation measures.

SriLankan Airlines had formed a Fuel Efficiency Department in July 2008, and has since increased its fuel efficiency by an average of 3.91 per cent per month up to end-January 2009.

“This has climbed to an all-time high of 5.63 per cent savings in January 2009,” the company said.

In real terms, the airline has saved 9.11 million litres of fuel over seven months.

The Green Flight provides a Special Green Counter and paperless ticketing, to passengers. Even the vehicles used for support services for the aircraft were certified as environment-friendly, with high fuel efficiency.

Besides, FlySmiLes offers bonus miles and gifts for their environment-friendly travel practices, such as Siddhalepa gift vouchers that can be used at the Siddhalepa Spa in Bad Homburg, Frankfurt, Germany, and invitations to the Siddhalepa Anarva Centre at the BIA.

Meanwhile, on board, cabin crew educated passengers, recyclable materials were used for meals using biodegradable and recyclable plastic items, waste was separated in the aircraft to be disposed of in the Frankfurt airport waste management system, and recyclable duty free bags were provided.