Mihin Lanka: Pilot Carries Personal Weighing Scale To Trap ‘Excess Baggage’ Ground Staff Cheats
August 23, 2015
A very senior pilot of Mihin Lanka carried his personal weighing scale on two of his flights from Colombo to Sharjah and back, to trap suspected ground staff colleagues of the airline at the gulf station, who he claims were permitting excess baggage to selected passengers, which made the airline lose millions of rupees in revenue that also impacted the overall flight safety, Colombo Telegraph reliably learns.
“Ground staff of certain airlines around the world are noted to be involved in rackets of this nature as regular travelers opt to pay unscrupulous airline employees monies illegally to have their excess baggage waved off. Moreover it is a flight safety risk of not accounting the exact weight weight distribution and also for refueling purposes” confirmed a Mihin Lanka employee on condition of anonymity. He also went on to sate that most airlines carry spot checks in these areas and in the budget airline’s case it is mandatory that this is seriously looked into.
The senior pilot operated back to back flights on the 24th and 31st of July 2014 from Colombo to Sharjah and back and on both occasions got his operating flight attendants to identify large cabin baggage that passengers were bringing on board.
The pilot in his first report informed the airline that a particular bag weighing 32 kg had slipped through among many other carry on baggage that weighed well over the airline’s permitted limit.
In his second report he complained that over 15 bags were carried by passengers on board weighing over 15 kgs each.
The airline employee who wished to remain anonymous stated that this a serious issue that warrants immediate action. “We already have cabin crew who are not assigned flying duties relating to injuries sustained on board due to assisting passengers with the carriage of these heavy bags that requires to be stowed in the over head compartments. Further as a low cost carrier, every paid kilo gram of excess baggage brought on board is of valuable revenue” concluded the employee.
A passenger whose details were also furnished by the pilot in his report, had stated that monies had been exchanged between travelers and ground staff without the issuance of receipts.
The two voyage reports were addressed by the pilot to the airline’s Director Flight Operations Capt. Pujitha Jayakody, who himself had once been arrested by the Singaporean police for shoplifting whilst on official duty.
However it is reported that the airline had not taken any action still.
