Flying High

Oct 04, 2007 (LBO) – The boom in civil aviation especially in the Asian region is opening up vast opportunities for professionals, especially in engineering, in Sri Lanka, a senior airline official said. Eardley Abayaratna, manager, technical services of the engineering arm of the national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines, said the rapid rate at which the world's airlines were ordering new aircraft would generate an equally large requirement for skilled manpower and support infrastructure and services.

"All this expansion generates the need for facility requirements in the region," he told the inaugural meeting of the newly formed Sri Lanka Aeronautical Society (SLAeS) on Sunday.

"The aviation boom offers many opportunities big time."

The manpower requirements were huge and aviation was attractive as a career for young people as it is the most technologically advanced field.

Anti-skid systems and automatic navigation systems now being used in cars came from the aviation industry where they have been long used, Abayaratna said.

Likewise, in materials sciences, composites now being used in racing cars and tennis rackets were used in aviation for a very long time.

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