News
Colombo Airport resumes normal operations as SriLankan juggles excess capacity
April 13th 2017
SriLankan Airlines has resumed normal operations across its network, following the resumption of full services at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport, which had been partially closed for three months while its runway underwent resurfacing. Read More »
While SriLankan’s flights are running on schedule again, its finances are still massively out of balance and no investor has been found to stop its haemorrhaging. In March, the state-controlled airline took delivery of its first A320neo and expects its second neo delivery this month.
At the delivery ceremony for its first re-engined single aisle, the airline’s CEO, Suren Ratwatte, said the neo orders were placed by SriLankan’s former management and he felt “compelled” to accept them, particularly after he had cancelled future leases for four A350s and was negotiating the termination of another four on direct order from Airbus.
“We are dealing with aircraft orders placed by the previous management. We have managed to save money either by terminating some of the orders or by selectively adding to the fleet appropriate aircraft based on the airline’s requirements,” SriLankan said in an official statement.
“We should not be taking any new aircraft at all,” Ratwatte told Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times, but said the carrier had “no choice” but to accept the commitments of four A321neo and two A320neo. Ratwatte said the planes would fly increased frequencies to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Delhi and Mumbai, in addition to routes to be announced “soon”. From July 17, SriLankan will increase flights to Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Gaya and Varanasi. It also launched a daily Colombo-Muscat A320 route last week.
Lanka Business Online said may wet lease an A330 freighter to tap into China’s e-commerce business. "Today we see more than US$3 trillion of e-commerce business is going out of China," said Chamara Ranasinghe, head of SriLankan Airlines Cargo. "We are looking at taking a slice of this business through a separate cargo aircraft on a lease and several synergies," he said. Cargo accounts for approximately 11% of SriLankan’s total revenue, a figure Ranasinghe hoped to increase to 15%.
