Sri Lankan Airlines looks for external sources to stay afloat

by admin
Dec 2, 2011
The government owned Sri Lankan Airlines has sought S$175 million of external funding after posting a record loss last year.

The cash strapped airlines posted a Rs.2.6 billion loss, and is turning to both the government and external funders in order to keep the company running.

Initially, the Civil Aviation Ministry of Sri Lanka sought an allocation of US$500 million over a period of three years for the airline from the budget. The Ministry also asked for US$20 million each over a period of three for Mihin Lanka, a wholly government owned enterprise which has made a loss of Rs.7 billion since its founding in 2007.

However, the government declared that only US$100 million each for a period of three years for Sri Lankan Airlines would be paid and US$10 million each for a period of two years for Mihin Lanka.

Sri Lankan Airlines Chief Executive Officer Kapila Chandrasena said that external sources of funding now had to be considered.
“We are discussing it. We wanted US$500 million in three years. Yet, we were promised it in the budget in five years. There is a gap in our financial requirement. To bridge that gap, a commercial borrowing will be considered.”
The decision comes at a time when Sri Lankan Airlines looks to expand the number of aircraft in its fleet from 20 to 30, despite the losses posted.

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button