SriLankan Airlines is now one of the few companies in Asia to receive the globally recognized EASA-147 certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), to provide training in aircraft maintenance to foreign and local students.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is the European Union's authority on aviation standards and safety.

Only one other company in Asia, outside the Middle East and China, has obtained EASA-147 certification, among only 23 non-European organizations to have it.

Peter Hill, CEO of SriLankan Airlines, said: "EASA's stringent standards are recognized around the world. It is another feather in the cap of SriLankan Engineering & Maintenance to be awarded this prestigious certification."

SriLankan Technical Training provides training for aircraft engineers, technicians and pilots. These already include foreign students from Pakistan, the Maldives, Oman and India, and staff of other airlines.

Captain Dick Hutton, Chief Technical Officer, said: "We at SriLankan have placed great emphasis in recent times on modernizing and upgrading our facilities. We are pleased to receive EASA-147 certification, only four months after receiving EASA-145 accreditation for our aircraft maintenance facilities."

Harsha Priyadarshan, the airline's Technical Training Manager, said: "We intend using the EASA-147 certification to actively market our training services throughout Asia. We were already recognized by aviation authorities of several South Asian nations."

SriLankan Technical Training's two-year training course in aircraft maintenance is already in high demand among locals and foreigners, both men and women who intend embarking upon a career in aviation. Both the avionics and airframe subjects are taught according to the EASA syllabus by its 11 highly trained academic staff.

It is also authorized by Airbus to conduct training for external students and organizations in A320 maintenance. SriLankan Technical training also provides training and certification of aircraft engineers of airlines that are contracted by SriLankan to certify SriLankan's aircraft in other countries.

It provides type training to handle maintenance needs of different types of aircraft including Airbus A340, A330, A320 and other aircraft. It also handles the aircraft engineering aspects in the training of cadet pilots for SriLankan.

SriLankan Engineering provides aircraft maintenance to other airlines at its facility at Colombo's Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), including 4C5Y maintenance checks. It handles aircraft of all airlines that use BIA. It was awarded the accolade of "World's Most Reliable Operator of A330 Aircraft (Small Fleet)" by Airbus.