Nishantha Wickremasinghe And Mihin Sucking
Katunayake Airport.
Nishantha Wickremasinghe is the brother-in-law of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He’s been Chairman of SriLankan Airlines since it started sucking and losing money, partly for reasons out of his control, but it’s not like he’s part of the solution either. This interview in the Island is interesting A) in that it’s such a bad interview and B) in that he seems to gaffe the truth, about Mihin at least.
There is a brand of interviews where the interviewer expresses surprise that their subject is human and, like, eats and is likable. This applies to movie stars and mass murderers. They’ll say something like, Kim Kardashian ordered the cheapest salad, therefore she’s a simple and down-to-earth person. It’s just dumb. I’m sure Stalin would be pleasant enough to have lunch with. Impressive even. An interviewer should try to get beyond that.
This Island interview is suckophancy on another level. It opens like “I was circumspect and did not want to be taken off guard. However, it took him under a few minutes to penetrate my journalistic shield” and ends with a poem. And this: “He was either as I have penned him or played me like a die. Either way he qualifies for this position he holds at the helm of that great pride for us Lankans in the sky.” Well, really? Either he’s a nice guy, or he’s totally lying – either way he’s great? No.
Gah. Along the way, however, Wickremasinghe did say something that seems true, and somewhat controversial, at least within the government. Namely that Mahinda’s namesake budget airline is an epic fail.
Unfortunately I have inherited Mihin too. I have just been appointed Chairman of Mihin. I do not think that Mihin can run profitably even today as an airline with two aircrafts. The critical economies of scale are not present. The only way that I see Mihin performing well is as an extention of Sri Lankan operations. Bar this, one has to find a way to remove the liability from Mihin on the Sri Lankan balance sheet. I as the chairman of Sri Lankan need to remunerate my people. On the one hand they have performed at their best. We are working towards profitability in our own house. A single liability is also denying them the benefits of this effort. I am therefore currently in consultation with the Treasury to find a solution to this. I have suggested an equity based capital infusion for this. (Mihin is a deadweight admits SriLankan boss)
The interviewer comes off like they’re from a middle school paper (“What about Sri Lankan Aero. I love those cute sea planes.”), but they did manage to get a scoop, the Chairman of Mihin saying it’s an albatross, which it is.
Oh, and Wickremesinghe has also been in the news when his house was burgled and Rs. 4 million in currency and a gold and diamond watch were reported stolen. The cash was undeclared but he said it came from his sons in April, giving him 90 days or whatever to declare it. That amount is just under the limit of what a person can carry into the country undeclared ($15,000 per person, two sons). Dodgy but not exceptionally so.
It’s just a shame that the national carrier is run so badly that even the crony Chairman is unhappy about it.
Not to quote Ice Cube, but the Sri Lankan police are hardly beloved. A 
I just gave a talk at the University Of Sri Jayawardenapura along with Reeza Zarook of Anything.lk and Rohan Jayaweera of Google. These are my notes: Devin Jayasundara asked me for a subject for this talk and I told him Internet property. But I talked to my fiancé Shru and she had a better idea. Startups aren’t about creating property at all, not really. They’re about creating territory, about creating land.
I haven’t been blogging much, I know. It’s partly because we’ve been doing a lot of work on YAMU, especially shipping 1.0.1 of the Android app today. It’s on the 
I met an old-timer who said they used to drop acid and sleep atop Sigiriya, but the place has taken on a more commercial and quasi-spiritual role now. It was built by a king as a sort of retreat and used as a monastery. Now it’s a prime tourist and cultural destination. Hence it’s a bit odd to see a Japanese beer commercial shot up there. There’s a bunch of people eating, um, deep fried cream filled coconuts and then drinking some bracing beer. I hear the whole thing cost Rs. 25,000 (I’m presuming they used stock images).
And I thought sports writers in SL were atrocious. The fuck did I just read?
i haven’t seen the same writer’s other articles swoop to such low levels. but hey! its MR’s BIL we are talking abt right?
here’s the dude.. http://www.mbapdn.lk/student_life/perspectives.html
the Island’s editorials these days are taking a very aggressive line on govt cronies and goons.. surprised that the editor missed this boot licking..
and Mihin makes a profit and srilankan loses about 15 billion apparently.
http://www.lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=1159284226
They share the same Chairman (subject of the fawning interview) and CEO. Given odd code-sharing and service deals and so on, this is most likely a charade. SriLankan is being bled to make Mihin look less embarrassing.
Possibly, but I think Sri Lankan is pretty badly off, because its being used as personal transport.
Passengers are being offloaded (a lot in the Maldives) so that unscheduled travel can be accommodated. Those offloaded are given some compensation and other flights have to be diverted to pick them up.
http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2012/06/17/mr-using-sri-lankan-airlines-as-his-private-jet/
Sad… it used to be far better when it was managed by Emirates. It really makes me wonder whether Sri Lanka has people who are talented enough and who have enough integrity to run companies successfully.Could it be lack of education? A generally low IQ? Why is it that seemingly everything touched by Sri Lankans turns to crap? Okay that question is full of rhetoric but still.
It is losing money due to the fact that there is political interference. It is not running as a commercial concern, only to boost the egos of the leaders, so when they insist on commandeering planes, running unprofitable routes (after the archbishop spoke to the president), overstaffing (giving a whole heap of “jobs” to people from Hambantota, regardless of whether the airline needs them or not and regardless of ability) there will be loss making entity.
http://sundaytimes.lk/120408/News/nws_35.html
I couldn’t read beyond,
‘From his handshake to his gait, here was a man who was very much a people’s person’
‘a people’s person’?? like really?
Just realized that the article was written by a former boss of mine. I remember him to be one of the most pretentious, obnoxious, self promoting individuals I have ever met. Had to leave the job because everyone around him got so sick and tired of the man. Fancy seeing him peddling a living as a writer…times must be tough. Sadly, despite the eloquent waxing, his writing still sucks.
Wow.
“The fuck did I just read?” (Theena)
Seconded.
This can’t be right…I thought Dodo said everything was ok with Mihin?!
OK for Dodo. He profits through Mihin. He has connections to the government.
[...] magazine of the state owned airline. The award was presented by… SriLankan Airlines Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe. So SriLankan literally gave an award to itself. Three awards were also given to official missions [...]