Sri Lanka Aviation

Great capture ! Thanks for sharing with us. When did you take the picture? Is she ready to come out from the hangar? Hope the cabins and seats have been fitted already.

I've had a quick look at it. My commentary follows:-

The title is "The skies are clearing" Really? With huge debts and even larger future liabilities?

It must refer to the Racketeers. The skies are clearing as no action will be taken against them! Got it!


Losses for the year $80.6 Million
This is unsustainable imho. Most of the reduction came from lower fuel prices - even Ajith Dias admits this. Nobody will touch this imho.


Statements from the Chairman and CEO
Plenty of talk but very little facts - as usual. No dates, no amounts and very little in the way of specifics.
These guys are political appointees - enough said.

List of Board Members
Shocking lack of Airline experience.
These guys are political appointees - enough said.

List of key managers within the Airline
Shocking lack of Airline experience.
One guy comes from Arik Air in Nigeria. I sub-contracted there for 6 months. The most dysfunctional Airline I have ever seen - a complete joke. Anyone in management at Arik Air should never be hired by anyone else.
At least one of them belongs in Prison for their actions detailed in the Weliamuna Report.

With one or two exceptions I don't believe anyone listed in this report could hold the equivalent position at any other Airline.

Lease Costs
Lease costs increased by 23.4%. That tends to happen when you lease aircraft at above market rates. This has doomed the Airline imho.

A350 Cancellation
Report shows $17.1 Million for cancelling one aircraft. Costs for the other 3 (+4 more from airbus) will be included in next years report.


The really interesting part starts on page 41.

In the past the financial reports were signed off by Ernst and Young an independent accounting firm. That's not the case this year.
This year's report is signed of by the Auditor General of the GOSL. What we have here is a government company being audited by the government.

This is a clear conflict of interest and raises a lot of questions about the accuracy of the information in the report.

No explanation of why the report is so late and no reason why the financial statements are not signed off by an independent accountant.

I guess people will have to decide whether to believe what they are being told by the GOSL. A quick look at the local newspapers gives me the answer.

Minister of Public Enterprises Development Kabir Hashim notes that an investor has been selected for a public private partnership with SriLankan Airlines.

The minister notes that the details of the investor have now been forwarded to the Prime Minister.

The Minister notes that the selected investor was one of the three shortlisted companies that was chosen through a tender process.

When questioned regarding the name of the company who are front-runners in the bid, the Minister said that he cannot reveal details since he is not in the committee.

According to the minister, if the bids don’t meet the requirements another would be called for and the committee is yet to inform if the bids have been selected or not.

Thanks Ejanson! Didn't wan't to quote your whole post but thanks for confirming what we all thought. It really doesnt look good for UL.




IMHO if TPG wants to fire 3500 people they should win since they are obviously the most realistic out of everyone involved! Its a neccessary evil to get UL out of the frying pan if its ever possible.

The firing story and Peace Air's agreement signing with the trade unions seem to indicate that they know someone else is going to win the bid and are getting ready for disruption.

Unfortunately this has been the problem and eternal curse for Sri Lanka in general; whenever something good happens there are always morons like this who disrupt it for their own benefit....

SriLankan Airlines bidders narrowed from 8 to 1



“We’ve been through an open, transparent process and we have now got down from eight to just one player. And the player is a private equity company."

Well that has let the cat out of the bag without divulging the name.

Cue for those clowns to start holding more media conferences and entertain us and UL unions to start protesting that a valuable national asset is being sold off, there will be probably even learned members of the previous regime who got UL into this mess offering their 2 cents and organize more protests.

PEACE AIR and Srilankan airlines union agreement

PEACE AIR and Srilankan airlines union agreement

Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) must investigate this Peace Air Company to check how they are going to bring US$ 5 Billion in to Sri Lankan Airlines.

Not a single Sri Lankan conglomerate based in Colombo is capable to invest US$ 5 Billion in to Sri Lankan Airlines.

Peace Air = Black Money – Still they didn’t declare source of funds.

You joined the forum for the singular purpose of posting peace air propaganda material?

It's not a question of black money, I think they are a couple of con artists and wouldn't be surprised if they don't have a cent.

If they have such a huge amount of money from ill gotten gains they wouldn't be embarking on such a foolish scheme to waste all of it in a couple of months time.

Trade unions cannot enter into any agreements with external parties without the approval of Senior Management,
and this Peace Air nonsense needs to stop.

Any individual with a basic education level won't associate with this Peace Air nonsense.

That's my take on Peace Air as well. I'm not sure what they hope to get out of this.

As for the sale:-

GOSL want to sell 49% of the Airline - so they have the final say in all decisions.

So that means any investor will have to pay $40 Million/year (49% of the losses) with no end in sight and also have to absorb several Billion dollars of liabilities in the future. In addition all decisions can be overturned by the GOSL.

Any investor will also need to tackle the rampant corruption and Racketeering - all those involved are protected at the highest level. Not going to happen imho.

This makes no sense whatsoever - nobody will invest under these circumstances. As soon as any investor figures this out they're gone!

The fact that no Airline will touch this already says enough.

i dont want post peace air propoganda i want konw share with u the hidden details from media are you everknow abouth these things :P :P

and today in the flightline
A320neo SriLankan Airlines 4R-ANA by Tobias Gudat, auf Flickr

Well done XFW-Spotter! Good job spotting 4R-ANA Keep all the supern photos coming, and let us know of the test flight day as well!