The national carrier, SriLankan Airlines, plans to sell or lease its slots at Heathrow airport in Britain under an extensive review programme as it acknowledged incurring a huge loss for the current financial year.
The losses made in 2011/2012 financial year ending March 31 would go beyond the 2010/2011 level of Rs. 202 million and exceed the budgeted loss of Rs. 8.3 billion, SriLankan Airline’s Chairman Nishantha Wickremesinghe told the Sunday Times.
The airline had budgeted the 2011/2012 losses at Rs. 8.3 billion but had expected it to increase due to the high fuel prices.
SriLankan Airlines which obtained 13 slots by 2011 through a tedious process of applying for slots over a period of nearly 20 years and bilateral air services agreements, is looking at auctioning at least seven of these slots to recoup some moneys for the increasing losses suffered by the airline, the Sunday Times learns.
Meanwhile, UNP frontliner Ravi Karunanayaka told the Sunday Times that SriLankan, though suffering huge losses, was fudging the books by manipulating figures and shifting the expenditure to next year in a bid to reduce losses.
