By Madhusha Thavapalakumar
Regardless of pioneering many achievements in the aviation space, the economic powerhouse, United States as of today does not have a national airline known as flag carriers and also highly unlikely to have one in the future as well. But it used to have a flag carrier in the 90s which is Pan Am.
The US aviation was strictly governed by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and it is the Board which decides which carrier should fly in selected air routes, even though these regulations reportedly helped a couple of airlines as they had minimum to no competition while operating in routes assigned to them by CAB.
During the post-World War II era, Pan Am had an impressive set of international routes while facing stiff competition from airlines such as TWA and Braniff. Pan Am was the pioneer of Boeing 747. From 1973 onwards, led by an oil crisis and increased competition in its international routes, Pan Am for the first time began struggling financially. Worsening the struggles further, then US president Jimmy Carter in 1978 signed an Airline Deregulation Act into law phasing out CAB, deregulating the aviation industry and ending the de facto flag carrier, Pan Am.
While might not be due to same reasons Pan Am had, SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of the pearl of the Indian Ocean and in fact the only carrier of the country too has been financially struggling for a decade now with no clear vision from the government on the next step of the debt-ridden loss making carrier. There are no (clear) plans of either operating the airline under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) or cancelling the airline as a whole like the US did to Pan Am as the airline is still permitted to operate in its debt-ridden state. While the US had refused to put up with a loss-making national carrier for more than five years, we have been dealing with one for the past 10 years.
In this context, the Market Mine of The Sunday Morning Business is this week taking a look at SriLankan Airlines inception, performance, large piles of losses it accumulated throughout the last decade and how financial struggles can be addressed by drawing a fine comparison between a couple of other national carriers around the world.
Emirates entry and exit
In 1979, the Sri Lankan Government established Air Lanka, right after the closure of Air Ceylon. In order to commence its operations, Air Lanka reportedly leased two Boeing 707 jets from Singapore Airlines. By 1990, Air Lanka was flying to about 26 destinations. In 1992, Air Lanka received its first Airbus A320 aircraft. However, by 1998, Air Lanka had carried forward a loss of Rs. 2.7 billion ($ 43 million) and the Sri Lankan Public Enterprises Reform Commission (PERC) decided to enter into a deal with Emirates Airlines in 1998 to operate the loss-making airline.
Accordingly, Emirates got a 40% stake at Air Lanka for $ 70 million for 10 years which was later expanded to 43.6%. Emirates had reportedly agreed to maintain a minimum holding of 30% when it entered the deal with the SriLankan Airlines. By this time, Air Lanka had ordered six Airbus A330-200s, 281 seat Rolls Royce Trent 700 powered A330s replaced two Airbus A320s and two Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 500s. With the aforementioned from Emirates, Air Lanka managed to complete the Airbus orders without a government guarantee, which is the usual way Air Lanka purchased aircrafts before Emirate’s entry.
The deal also rebranded the airline as SriLankan Airlines, the current name of Sri Lanka’s flag carrier. In the early 2000s, SriLankan became the largest airline that flew to India as 100 weekly flights were operated for 11 Indian destinations. SriLankan was reportedly modernised and became impressingly profitable under Emirates’ management.
Nevertheless, in 2008, the Sri Lankan Government decided to take back the stake of Air Lanka from Emirates as Emirates’ discussion with the Sri Lankan Government on extending the contract did not turn out so well due to a couple of reasons. The Airlines reportedly recorded a profit of Rs. 4.4 billion in 2008. In the meantime, the Government had also launched another national carrier which was called Mihin Lanka, a low-fare airline which created competition for SriLankan in Dubai and Singaporean routes.
At the point of Emirates’ exit, Mihin had captured about 10% of SriLanka’s markets and was tipped to take over SriLankan Airlines profitability in a couple of years. With Emirates’ exit, Mihin’s rapid market expansion was too much for SriLankan Airlines to handle. Also, the failure of the Government to find a potential partner to operate the airline resulted in the Sri Lankan Government taking over the operation control of SriLankan. In 2010, the Government consolidated its hold over SriLankan and bought the stake from Emirates and ended all the affiliations it had with Emirates.
In the financial year 2010/2011, SriLankan recorded a loss of Rs. 202.3 million which exacerbated to Rs. 17.18 billion during the financial year 2011/2012. In 2012, the Airlines obtained a four year loan of $ 175 million from Al Hilal Bank of Abu Dhabi, Noor Islamic Bank of Dubai, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and United Bank for additional capital.
The losses kept being reported. Ten years after Emirates’ exit, in April 2018, SriLankan Airlines reported a revenue of Rs. 126.9 billion for the financial year ended on 31 March 2018 and it was the highest revenue the national carrier recorded in its 38 years of operations. In the meantime, it recorded a loss of Rs. 40 billion during the financial year, reportedly the highest annual loss since Emirates’ departure of the airline’s management. The airline attributed the poor financial performance to rising global fuel prices, rapid depreciation of local and regional currencies and political instability.
In August 2019, Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) revealed that for the ten year period from 2009 to 2019, SriLankan had recorded a colossal loss of Rs. 240 billion, the cost of building 20 Lotus Towers.
Attempts of rescuing from losses
Today, SriLankan Airlines is reportedly the largest airline serving the Maldives and Southern Indian routes. The carrier is also a member of Oneworld, an airline alliance. SriLankan before the pandemic, was operating to 111 destinations in 48 countries including the codeshare operations, while still making losses.
The Government has ‘taken measures’ at multiple occasions throughout the period to rescue the airline from its significant annual losses. Unfortunately, many of these measures either never materialised as they remained as plans, or materialised but did not provide any impressive results. One such thing would be SriLankan’s restructuring strategy.
In January 2019, then President Maithripala Sirisena appointed a 10-member committee to make recommendations for a restructuring plan for SriLankan Airlines and this was the latest public attempt to restructure the national carrier. The committee was to submit its report to the President in two weeks. It submitted the report, but the Government did not take any actions. The current Government which was elected a couple of months later is yet to decide on this restructuring report and the prolonged delay in taking up the strategy report indicates that the Government might have abandoned this particular report compiled by the former Government.
Restructuring history of SriLankan Airlines
Many committees and reports come before this to reverse the fortunes of SriLankan Airlines. According to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) the then SriLankan Airlines management assigned Chief Financial Officer (CFO) S.A. Chandrasekara to formulate two business plans in 2008 and 2010, neither of which were implemented.
Former SriLankan Airlines Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe appointed S.A. Chandrasekara to formulate a strategic business plan for SriLankan within three months for four financial years in April, 2010.
Focusing on sales of SriLankan shares rather than obtaining loans from the Treasury, Chandrasekara prepared a four-year (2010/11-2014/15) business plan amounting to $ 300 million, with subsidiaries for ground handling, catering, and engineering by enabling entities eligible for entering into agreements and also enabling them to sell shares.
SriLankan Airlines Management paid Rs. 50.7 million to Via Capital Company in 2010 to evaluate the business plan formulated by Chandrasekara at a cost of Rs. 750,000. The particular company went through Chandrasekara’s proposals and came up with its own five-year proposal in May, 2011.
Expanding Chandrasekara’s proposal of $ 300 million to $ 510 million, Via Capital suggested a number of proposals including the expansion of the SriLankan fleet to 23 aircrafts comprising nine narrow bodies and 14 wide-bodies.
Fast forward to February, 2015, the then Minister of Ports, Shipping and Aviation Arjuna Ranatunga appointed a four-member committee, headed by Attorney-at-Law J.C. Weliamuna to look into the alleged corruption that took place at SriLankan Airlines during the Rajapaksa regime. The committee’s report, which is referred to as the “Weliamuna Report” was officially handed over to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on 1 April, 2015.
In its report, the committee revealed a large number of corruptions including security breaches and recruitment of unqualified staff. The report in its starting reveals that the questionable appointment of Kapila Chandrasena as the CEO of SriLankan Airlines was void of a competitive interview process.
Referring to the former Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe and CEO Chandrasena, the report noted blatant disregard of procurement and tender procedures in 2011/2012, laid by SriLankan Airlines. The committee report recommended a criminal investigation to be launched in this regard.
In October, 2017, President Maithripala Sirisena appointed a Cabinet Committee and a State Officials Committee, which were given the task of deciding on the fate of the airline, with options which ranged from finding an equity partner to the closure of the airline.
The committee was expected to compile a preliminary report by December, 2017 as the entire way forward for the airline had to be implemented on or before 31 March, 2018.
In November, 2017, Nyras Consulting Company, a British firm, was hired by the Government to advise it on initiating a restructuring programme and securing an investor for the loss-making national carrier. They presented their preliminary report in December, 2017 outlining the broad framework for restructuring.
The consultants outlined a restructuring programme under five broad areas – managing the right size and type of aircraft fleet, debt restructuring, tax concessions, and network rationalising and fuel price – to restructure and improve its financial position.
In February, 2018, then President Sirisena appointed a five-member Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) to investigate allegations of fraud and corruption at SriLankan Airlines, SriLankan Catering (Pvt.) Ltd. and Mihin Lanka.
The commission investigated irregularities that took place between 1 January, 2006 and 1 January, 2018 and so far revealed numerous irregularities that took place during the period.
This is how other countries are dealing with loss-making national carriers
Sadly, many of the flag carriers around the world have been floundering and making losses. After spending about $ 500 million in the past few years, the Namibian Government in February this year decided to shut down Air Namibia, the national carrier of the government. According to Africa News, in October 2019, the airline’s $ 119 million bailout appeal was turned down but after talks, the government underwrote a $ 34 million loan to keep the firm afloat. The 75-year-old airline had reportedly received a total of $ 477 million from the state between 1999 and 2019.
Meanwhile, Air India, the financially struggling national carrier of India is set to be privatised completely before the end of the first half of this year. Financial bids are expected to be submitted next month. According to the Indian civil authorities, Air India currently operates at a daily loss of INR 20 crore which provided the government with two options, one is to close down the operations of the airline and the second one is to privatise the airline, and the government has chosen the option of privatising.
In July last year, the Myanmar Government approved plans to find a strategic investor for the cash strapper national airlines of Myanmar and even formed an independent board at the airline. Financial woes of the airline had worsened following the global outbreak of the pandemic forcing the airline to bleed about $ 5 million per month.
In 1987, British Airways, the flag carrier of the United Kingdom was fully privatised and this was ten years after the UK Government announced plans to sell a stake in the airline. The initial share offering was 11 times over-subscribed. 94% of BA employees bought shares in the airline.This was the result of a huge turnaround in both financial performance and public perception.
But still there are a number of national carriers that are left to suffer in their current stage while there are also airlines that recorded bankruptcy even after privatisation such as Japan Airlines. According to the Capa Analyst team on centreforaviation.com, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution when it comes to airline privatisation, adding that IPOs have worked well for larger airlines, while those needing more active support from a partner have fared better through a trade sale. In general, however, two requirements for a successful privatisation are a track record of profitability and no government interference in the running of the airline, concludes Capa.
What can SriLankan do going ahead?
Experts are advising SriLankan Airlines to declare bankruptcy eliminating lessors, creditor and staff liabilities but move the bank debt liabilities into a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), and service on a restructured basis.
A senior local businessman told The Sunday Morning Business that a new airline can be set up by a private company with the treasury owning a minority stake and this can be a proxy flag carrier.
“The government will inject little or no setup capital and any profits to be used to service the SPV (debt of UL). It will be fully managed by the reputable private/listed company. My understanding is that a vast majority (80%) of the cabinet are also in favour of shutting down the airline and there is no shame in doing so,” he added.
According to reports, many flag carriers are struggling to stay in the operation, and governments are forced to consider whether ownership of a failing airline is an ideal investment of public funds. Many of the national airlines that record sound -financial performance have seen governments reducing their ownership in the respective airlines or privatising carriers entirely, as the UK and Spain have done with British Airways and Iberia, which merged into the International Airlines Group (IAG) in 2011.
Reports add that ‘beyond mitigating risk, part of the motivation for privatisation is allowing the company’s executive management to make the financial and operational decisions free from political pressure or meddling’. If SriLankan Airlines keeps bleeding like the way it has been for the past decade, the Government is in a position to question itself whether there is still value in having a national carrier other than patriotism or pride instead of being adamant in letting the airline go.National carrier or national downer?
04 Apr 2021
National carrier or national downer?
04 Apr 2021
By Madhusha Thavapalakumar
Regardless of pioneering many achievements in the aviation space, the economic powerhouse, United States as of today does not have a national airline known as flag carriers and also highly unlikely to have one in the future as well. But it used to have a flag carrier in the 90s which is Pan Am.
The US aviation was strictly governed by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and it is the Board which decides which carrier should fly in selected air routes, even though these regulations reportedly helped a couple of airlines as they had minimum to no competition while operating in routes assigned to them by CAB.
During the post-World War II era, Pan Am had an impressive set of international routes while facing stiff competition from airlines such as TWA and Braniff. Pan Am was the pioneer of Boeing 747. From 1973 onwards, led by an oil crisis and increased competition in its international routes, Pan Am for the first time began struggling financially. Worsening the struggles further, then US president Jimmy Carter in 1978 signed an Airline Deregulation Act into law phasing out CAB, deregulating the aviation industry and ending the de facto flag carrier, Pan Am.
While might not be due to same reasons Pan Am had, SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier of the pearl of the Indian Ocean and in fact the only carrier of the country too has been financially struggling for a decade now with no clear vision from the government on the next step of the debt-ridden loss making carrier. There are no (clear) plans of either operating the airline under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) or cancelling the airline as a whole like the US did to Pan Am as the airline is still permitted to operate in its debt-ridden state. While the US had refused to put up with a loss-making national carrier for more than five years, we have been dealing with one for the past 10 years.
In this context, the Market Mine of The Sunday Morning Business is this week taking a look at SriLankan Airlines inception, performance, large piles of losses it accumulated throughout the last decade and how financial struggles can be addressed by drawing a fine comparison between a couple of other national carriers around the world.
Emirates entry and exit
In 1979, the Sri Lankan Government established Air Lanka, right after the closure of Air Ceylon. In order to commence its operations, Air Lanka reportedly leased two Boeing 707 jets from Singapore Airlines. By 1990, Air Lanka was flying to about 26 destinations. In 1992, Air Lanka received its first Airbus A320 aircraft. However, by 1998, Air Lanka had carried forward a loss of Rs. 2.7 billion ($ 43 million) and the Sri Lankan Public Enterprises Reform Commission (PERC) decided to enter into a deal with Emirates Airlines in 1998 to operate the loss-making airline.
Accordingly, Emirates got a 40% stake at Air Lanka for $ 70 million for 10 years which was later expanded to 43.6%. Emirates had reportedly agreed to maintain a minimum holding of 30% when it entered the deal with the SriLankan Airlines. By this time, Air Lanka had ordered six Airbus A330-200s, 281 seat Rolls Royce Trent 700 powered A330s replaced two Airbus A320s and two Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 500s. With the aforementioned from Emirates, Air Lanka managed to complete the Airbus orders without a government guarantee, which is the usual way Air Lanka purchased aircrafts before Emirate’s entry.
The deal also rebranded the airline as SriLankan Airlines, the current name of Sri Lanka’s flag carrier. In the early 2000s, SriLankan became the largest airline that flew to India as 100 weekly flights were operated for 11 Indian destinations. SriLankan was reportedly modernised and became impressingly profitable under Emirates’ management.
Nevertheless, in 2008, the Sri Lankan Government decided to take back the stake of Air Lanka from Emirates as Emirates’ discussion with the Sri Lankan Government on extending the contract did not turn out so well due to a couple of reasons. The Airlines reportedly recorded a profit of Rs. 4.4 billion in 2008. In the meantime, the Government had also launched another national carrier which was called Mihin Lanka, a low-fare airline which created competition for SriLankan in Dubai and Singaporean routes.
At the point of Emirates’ exit, Mihin had captured about 10% of SriLanka’s markets and was tipped to take over SriLankan Airlines profitability in a couple of years. With Emirates’ exit, Mihin’s rapid market expansion was too much for SriLankan Airlines to handle. Also, the failure of the Government to find a potential partner to operate the airline resulted in the Sri Lankan Government taking over the operation control of SriLankan. In 2010, the Government consolidated its hold over SriLankan and bought the stake from Emirates and ended all the affiliations it had with Emirates.
In the financial year 2010/2011, SriLankan recorded a loss of Rs. 202.3 million which exacerbated to Rs. 17.18 billion during the financial year 2011/2012. In 2012, the Airlines obtained a four year loan of $ 175 million from Al Hilal Bank of Abu Dhabi, Noor Islamic Bank of Dubai, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and United Bank for additional capital.
The losses kept being reported. Ten years after Emirates’ exit, in April 2018, SriLankan Airlines reported a revenue of Rs. 126.9 billion for the financial year ended on 31 March 2018 and it was the highest revenue the national carrier recorded in its 38 years of operations. In the meantime, it recorded a loss of Rs. 40 billion during the financial year, reportedly the highest annual loss since Emirates’ departure of the airline’s management. The airline attributed the poor financial performance to rising global fuel prices, rapid depreciation of local and regional currencies and political instability.
In August 2019, Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) revealed that for the ten year period from 2009 to 2019, SriLankan had recorded a colossal loss of Rs. 240 billion, the cost of building 20 Lotus Towers.
Attempts of rescuing from losses
Today, SriLankan Airlines is reportedly the largest airline serving the Maldives and Southern Indian routes. The carrier is also a member of Oneworld, an airline alliance. SriLankan before the pandemic, was operating to 111 destinations in 48 countries including the codeshare operations, while still making losses.
The Government has ‘taken measures’ at multiple occasions throughout the period to rescue the airline from its significant annual losses. Unfortunately, many of these measures either never materialised as they remained as plans, or materialised but did not provide any impressive results. One such thing would be SriLankan’s restructuring strategy.
In January 2019, then President Maithripala Sirisena appointed a 10-member committee to make recommendations for a restructuring plan for SriLankan Airlines and this was the latest public attempt to restructure the national carrier. The committee was to submit its report to the President in two weeks. It submitted the report, but the Government did not take any actions. The current Government which was elected a couple of months later is yet to decide on this restructuring report and the prolonged delay in taking up the strategy report indicates that the Government might have abandoned this particular report compiled by the former Government.
Restructuring history of SriLankan Airlines
Many committees and reports come before this to reverse the fortunes of SriLankan Airlines. According to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) the then SriLankan Airlines management assigned Chief Financial Officer (CFO) S.A. Chandrasekara to formulate two business plans in 2008 and 2010, neither of which were implemented.
Former SriLankan Airlines Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe appointed S.A. Chandrasekara to formulate a strategic business plan for SriLankan within three months for four financial years in April, 2010.
Focusing on sales of SriLankan shares rather than obtaining loans from the Treasury, Chandrasekara prepared a four-year (2010/11-2014/15) business plan amounting to $ 300 million, with subsidiaries for ground handling, catering, and engineering by enabling entities eligible for entering into agreements and also enabling them to sell shares.
SriLankan Airlines Management paid Rs. 50.7 million to Via Capital Company in 2010 to evaluate the business plan formulated by Chandrasekara at a cost of Rs. 750,000. The particular company went through Chandrasekara’s proposals and came up with its own five-year proposal in May, 2011.
Expanding Chandrasekara’s proposal of $ 300 million to $ 510 million, Via Capital suggested a number of proposals including the expansion of the SriLankan fleet to 23 aircrafts comprising nine narrow bodies and 14 wide-bodies.
Fast forward to February, 2015, the then Minister of Ports, Shipping and Aviation Arjuna Ranatunga appointed a four-member committee, headed by Attorney-at-Law J.C. Weliamuna to look into the alleged corruption that took place at SriLankan Airlines during the Rajapaksa regime. The committee’s report, which is referred to as the “Weliamuna Report” was officially handed over to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on 1 April, 2015.
In its report, the committee revealed a large number of corruptions including security breaches and recruitment of unqualified staff. The report in its starting reveals that the questionable appointment of Kapila Chandrasena as the CEO of SriLankan Airlines was void of a competitive interview process.
Referring to the former Chairman Nishantha Wickremasinghe and CEO Chandrasena, the report noted blatant disregard of procurement and tender procedures in 2011/2012, laid by SriLankan Airlines. The committee report recommended a criminal investigation to be launched in this regard.
In October, 2017, President Maithripala Sirisena appointed a Cabinet Committee and a State Officials Committee, which were given the task of deciding on the fate of the airline, with options which ranged from finding an equity partner to the closure of the airline.
The committee was expected to compile a preliminary report by December, 2017 as the entire way forward for the airline had to be implemented on or before 31 March, 2018.
In November, 2017, Nyras Consulting Company, a British firm, was hired by the Government to advise it on initiating a restructuring programme and securing an investor for the loss-making national carrier. They presented their preliminary report in December, 2017 outlining the broad framework for restructuring.
The consultants outlined a restructuring programme under five broad areas – managing the right size and type of aircraft fleet, debt restructuring, tax concessions, and network rationalising and fuel price – to restructure and improve its financial position.
In February, 2018, then President Sirisena appointed a five-member Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) to investigate allegations of fraud and corruption at SriLankan Airlines, SriLankan Catering (Pvt.) Ltd. and Mihin Lanka.
The commission investigated irregularities that took place between 1 January, 2006 and 1 January, 2018 and so far revealed numerous irregularities that took place during the period.
This is how other countries are dealing with loss-making national carriers
Sadly, many of the flag carriers around the world have been floundering and making losses. After spending about $ 500 million in the past few years, the Namibian Government in February this year decided to shut down Air Namibia, the national carrier of the government. According to Africa News, in October 2019, the airline’s $ 119 million bailout appeal was turned down but after talks, the government underwrote a $ 34 million loan to keep the firm afloat. The 75-year-old airline had reportedly received a total of $ 477 million from the state between 1999 and 2019.
Meanwhile, Air India, the financially struggling national carrier of India is set to be privatised completely before the end of the first half of this year. Financial bids are expected to be submitted next month. According to the Indian civil authorities, Air India currently operates at a daily loss of INR 20 crore which provided the government with two options, one is to close down the operations of the airline and the second one is to privatise the airline, and the government has chosen the option of privatising.
In July last year, the Myanmar Government approved plans to find a strategic investor for the cash strapper national airlines of Myanmar and even formed an independent board at the airline. Financial woes of the airline had worsened following the global outbreak of the pandemic forcing the airline to bleed about $ 5 million per month.
In 1987, British Airways, the flag carrier of the United Kingdom was fully privatised and this was ten years after the UK Government announced plans to sell a stake in the airline. The initial share offering was 11 times over-subscribed. 94% of BA employees bought shares in the airline.This was the result of a huge turnaround in both financial performance and public perception.
But still there are a number of national carriers that are left to suffer in their current stage while there are also airlines that recorded bankruptcy even after privatisation such as Japan Airlines. According to the Capa Analyst team on centreforaviation.com, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution when it comes to airline privatisation, adding that IPOs have worked well for larger airlines, while those needing more active support from a partner have fared better through a trade sale. In general, however, two requirements for a successful privatisation are a track record of profitability and no government interference in the running of the airline, concludes Capa.
What can SriLankan do going ahead?
Experts are advising SriLankan Airlines to declare bankruptcy eliminating lessors, creditor and staff liabilities but move the bank debt liabilities into a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), and service on a restructured basis.
A senior local businessman told The Sunday Morning Business that a new airline can be set up by a private company with the treasury owning a minority stake and this can be a proxy flag carrier.
“The government will inject little or no setup capital and any profits to be used to service the SPV (debt of UL). It will be fully managed by the reputable private/listed company. My understanding is that a vast majority (80%) of the cabinet are also in favour of shutting down the airline and there is no shame in doing so,” he added.
According to reports, many flag carriers are struggling to stay in the operation, and governments are forced to consider whether ownership of a failing airline is an ideal investment of public funds. Many of the national airlines that record sound -financial performance have seen governments reducing their ownership in the respective airlines or privatising carriers entirely, as the UK and Spain have done with British Airways and Iberia, which merged into the International Airlines Group (IAG) in 2011.
Reports add that ‘beyond mitigating risk, part of the motivation for privatisation is allowing the company’s executive management to make the financial and operational decisions free from political pressure or meddling’. If SriLankan Airlines keeps bleeding like the way it has been for the past decade, the Government is in a position to question itself whether there is still value in having a national carrier other than patriotism or pride instead of being adamant in letting the airline go.