Does anyone know the latest joke doing the rounds?
When Air Lanka was a state airline its code letters UL were said to stand for "usually late". Now that SriLankan is now back under state management, they have gone one better. Now the code is said to stand for "unable to locate aircraft".
Funnily enough, this is exactly how dear old Air Ceylon collapsed. We used to have a few coasters and some cutlery emblazoned with the Air Ceylon Logo (which I always thought was really nice, much better than the Air Lanka or SriLankan logos -have a look at it here and here.
Coming back to the story of the collapse of Air Ceylon, it happened when one of its aircraft was seized in Europe for non payment of fuel bills in 1977. Another aircraft was blown up at Ratmalana in 1978 and that was the end for Air Ceylon. Ones wonders whether a similar fate will befall SriLankan?
More details on Air Ceylon's history are available here and here.
9 comments:
Sorry, but that Air Ceylon logo looks utterly shit. Like a policy logo for Ceylinco or something.
Hey David - I agree. But that was done like 50 years ago man. It would be interesting to compare it with some of the other logos of that period and see if it is still shitty in comparison. I guess that would be fair.
I think it looks's pretty bad even in comparison to period stuff. C'mon, KLM, Quantas, BIA, Lufthansa, all had fairly cool shit on their planes even in the '70s. But I was just responding to CJ's comment that it looks better than the Airlanka and SriLankan logos. Heck, bloody Mihin Air logo looks better than the Air Ceylon one!
The logo is something I knew when I was a boy which is probably why I find it so facinating.
I think the current Sri Lankan logo looks better than Air Ceylon.....
Air Ceylon looks pretty ancient... and I guess it is..:D
David - Agreed! Do you know which Agency was responsible?
before mihin air started i remember a biggie from the TAASL saying that the reason Mihin air was being started was because they foresaw Emirates pulling out and thought Sri Lankan will land flat on its face. according to him, if that happened the staff of sri lankan would have been too large for the government to support on redundancy payments, and MA was supposed to absorb the layed off crowd.
like i said, this was before MA started. this was also during the time when the TAASL was having issues with sri lankan. whether this is actual fact or something he thought up on his own, i'm not sure. but right now it looks like sri lankan is having issues holding on to their current staff, not with ones that have been fired. sigh. the wonders of the democratic socialist banana republic of sri lanka.
You write very well.
Thanks, Rimca:)
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