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Sri Lankan Airlines, the national carrier of the country, is often subjected to many controversial discussions on many paltforms, including social media. This is an investigation into a post circulating on social media regarding the naming of one of Sri Lankan Airlines’ aircraft.
Social Media Posts:
On August 1st, a Facebook post along with a photo of a Sri Lanka Airlines airplane, stated that for the first time in history, an A320-200 airplane belonging to Sri Lankan Airlines had been named after the city of Jaffna, with the caption, “1st Time in Sri Lankan Airlines History! (A320 Airbus) City of Yalpanam (Jaffna) “. The relevant post was published with a link to a news article published on the Debasa.lk website on July 7th.
Below is another post that implied a recent renaming of a Sri Lankan Airlines flight honouring the city of Jaffna.
Based on the above Facebook posts, it immediately appears that Sri Lankan Airlines has recently made this naming change. Accordingly, we investigated whether Sri Lankan Airlines recently named an aircraft after the City of Yalpanam, for the first time in history.
Fact Check :
As the image caption of the viral posts clearly mentioned that for the first time in history, a Sri Lanka Airlines flight had been named as “City of Yalpanam”, many users assumed it to be a recent event.
Accordingly, we checked Sri Lankan Airlines’ official social media accounts to verify whether the aircraft was named recently. But we did not come across any news of such a designation being made recently.
To further clarify, we checked the world-renowned website planespotters.net, which contains information about aircraft. It was confirmed that the Airbus A3320-200 aircraft acquired by Sri Lankan Airlines under lease in 2011 was renamed as City of Yalpanam in 2015.
Meanwhile, when examining several photos of the aeroplane posted in recent years, it was found that a picture of the aeroplane posted in August 2015 had the words “City of Yalpanam” written on its front. jetphotos.com
In addition, it can be seen that Sri Lankan Airlines has named its aeroplanes after several other cities.
Meanwhile, here is how the photos of the aeroplane City of Yalpanm were posted on Facebook in February 2023.
We also contacted an airport journalist to find out more about whether a Sri Lankan flight was recently named as City of Yalpanam. He said that there is no information reported about a Sri Lankan aeroplane being renamed as ‘City of Yalpanam’. We also asked if a new sticker stating “City of Yalpanam” had been affixed to the aircraft, and he said that no such change had been made recently.
We attempted to contact a responsible official at Sri Lankan Airlines to confirm further information on this matter, but were unsuccessful.
The misleading article was later updated.
We observed the content of the website report, which had led to social media posts. It was posted with the caption Sri Lankan Airlines Names Aircraft “City of Yalpanam” — A Moment of Pride for Jaffna. The relevant news report describes that the Sri Lankan Airlines Airbus A320-200 aircraft has been named the City of Yalpanam, which is a matter of great pride for the people of Jaffna.
It was also stated that since the holiday season has begun in Western Countries, many foreign Hindu devotees will be arriving in Sri Lanka using Sri Lankan Airlines to participate in the Nallur festival.
The article goes on to state that, as air passengers are still experiencing inconvenience due to the lack of direct flights between Katunayake International Airport and Jaffna International Airport, if direct flights between Katunayake and Jaffna are introduced, it will be possible to bring more tourists to the North. The news report also included many other facts praising Sri Lanka’s decision to name the Airbus A320-200 City of Yalpanam.
While the initial article had implied this naming had happened recently, as many users had commented on the misleading nature of the article, at the end of the news report, in the updated section, there is now an explanation stating that this aircraft was named City of Yalpanam in 2011, which is also misleading as the naming happened only in 2015.
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Conclusion :
Our investigation reveals that the news report, which stated that the Airbus A340-200 of Sri Lankan Airlines was recently renamed as ‘City of Yalpanam’, is misleading. Accordingly, it is clear that the Airbus A320-200 Sri Lankan aircraft, which joined Sri Lankan Airlines in 2011, was renamed ‘City of Yalpanam’ in 2015.
Title:Did Sri Lankan Airlines Recently Name one of their aircraft as “City of Yalpanam”?
Fact Check By: Fact Crescendo TeamResult: Misleading
