Two SriLankan Airlines pilots whose fathers flew for the airline in its earliest years took part in an aviation talk marking the national carrier’s 47th anniversary, the Daily Mirror reported.
Captain Shavantha Pedris and Senior First Officer Nuwan Jayawickrama appeared in the sixth episode of The Skyline Stories, a talk series run by SriLankan Aviation College for its students.
Captain Pedris is the son of Captain Ranjit Pedris; Senior First Officer Jayawickrama is the son of Captain Nihal Jayawickrama. Both fathers were part of the flight crew that established Air Lanka, which began operations on 1 September 1979 with two Boeing 707s.
What the pilots said
Pedris said growing up around aviation shaped his choice of career, and that his father had encouraged him to aim higher from a young age.
“Each experience has shaped who I am and strengthened my passion for aviation. Now, I feel it is my turn to give back to the industry that has given me so much,” he said.
Jayawickrama said aviation had always been part of family life, so becoming a pilot felt like a natural possibility — but that following a successful parent carried its own expectations.
“The goal is not simply to follow someone else’s journey, but to learn from it and build your own,” he said.
The session covered both the experience of the generation that set up Air Lanka and the pressures facing aviation professionals today.
Why the format exists
The Skyline Stories is pitched at students of the airline’s own training college, and its stated purpose is to close the gap between aviation education and what a career in the industry actually involves. That makes it a recruitment-facing exercise as much as a commemorative one, at a point when the national carrier is expanding its commercial systems and the wider local sector is adding new operators.
A single-source story
This is a genuine exclusive among verified newsrooms. A search across the Sri Lankan press found the event carried only by the Daily Mirror; the remaining coverage sits on aviation trade sites and aggregators, which do not count toward corroboration under our sourcing rules.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror does not say when or where the session was held, how many students attended, or who moderated it. It does not name the five earlier episodes’ participants, say how many pilots SriLankan currently employs, or indicate how many are children of former crew — which would establish whether these two are unusual or part of a wider pattern. Neither father’s flying record is described beyond the fact of their pioneering service.
