Let me begin with what should be beyond dispute: corruption in public procurement is indefensible.
Anyone who solicited, paid, facilitated, or knowingly benefited from bribes connected with SriLankan Airlines’ aircraft acquisition should be investigated and, where the evidence supports it, prosecuted and punished. Nothing in this article excuses corruption, defends any political figure, or diminishes what occurred.
The Airbus transactions damaged public finances, SriLankan Airlines’ reputation, and confidence in Government decision-making. As colossal sums of public money were involved in this endeavour, Sri Lanka deserves a complete accounting of how the deal was structured, who influenced it, and who benefited.
This story, however, contains two major decisions. Firstly, the acquisition, and secondly, the subsequent cancellation of the A350 commitments. The corrupt circumstances surrounding the first have received considerable attention. The technical and financial reasoning behind the second has received far less scrutiny.
A corrupt procurement process does not automatically make the selected aircraft technically unsuitable. An aircraft does not become inefficient, incapable, or commercially inappropriate because corruption influenced its acquisition. The legality of the transaction and the suitability of the aircraft are separate questions.
SriLankan’s fleet-renewal programme combined the A330-300 with the newer A350-900, intended for higher-demand services and possible future markets requiring greater range, payload capability, and fuel efficiency. Following the change of government, the A350 commitments were unwound during 2016–2017, reportedly on consultancy advice that the aircraft was too large, expensive, or unsuitable for the airline.
Once SriLankan had committed to the A350, however, the question was whether accepting the aircraft – or deferring, renegotiating, or subleasing them – offered a better outcome than cancellation. That required a transparent, route-by-route comparison of fuel burn, capacity, cargo revenue, payload-range performance, utilisation, maintenance, financing, and residual value. It also required accounting for cancellation payments, replacement aircraft, lost contractual value, and foregone network opportunities.
Corruption may understandably have created political pressure to dismantle the transaction. But political repudiation is not necessarily sound fleet planning. If cancellation relied on incomplete assumptions or inadequate analysis, one damaging decision may have been followed by another.
Punishing corruption and questioning the cancellation are not contradictory. Genuine accountability requires scrutiny of both decisions.
Why did SriLankan select the A350?
When the Emirates management arrangement ended in 2008, SriLankan entered a difficult period of State management, growing losses, and strategic uncertainty.
Its long-haul fleet still depended on ageing four-engined A340-300s. These aircraft had served the airline well, but rising fuel and maintenance costs made their replacement inevitable.
The 2013 fleet-renewal programme included A330-300s for the existing medium- and long-haul network and A350-900s to provide greater range, payload, and future growth capability. Four A350s were purchased directly from Airbus, while another four were arranged through lessors.
After the change of government in 2015, the strategy changed. SriLankan was instructed to restructure and pursue break-even within two years. Paris and Frankfurt were selected for suspension, the planned widebody fleet was reduced, and the four leased A350s were cancelled during 2016.
SriLankan was unquestionably in financial difficulty. But that does not, by itself, prove that the A350 was the wrong aircraft.
This was not merely a larger A330
The A350-900 was a clean-sheet design built around the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine, a new-generation wing and an airframe made extensively from carbon-fibre composite and titanium.
Approximately 53% of its structure is carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer, while more than 70% consists of advanced materials. This reduces structural weight and exposure to corrosion and fatigue, with corresponding benefits for fuel consumption and long-term maintenance.
This would have also been the first such occasion where SriLankan Engineering would have welcomed this technology onto our shores, thereby elevating the technical competence of the entire aeronautical engineering industry of the country.
Its wing incorporates advanced aerodynamic features, including variable camber in cruise, while the Trent XWB was designed specifically for the aircraft. Airbus claims approximately 25% lower fuel burn and emissions compared with previous-generation aircraft in the same broad market category.
Manufacturer claims must always be tested against an airline’s actual route, configuration, and utilisation. But the A350’s underlying engineering advantages are real.
The current A350-900 has a published range of approximately 8,600 nautical miles. The A330-300 is published at approximately 6,350 nautical miles.
That difference would have given SriLankan options that its present A330-300 fleet cannot provide comfortably:
- Colombo–Auckland: approximately 5,900 nautical miles
- Colombo–Toronto: approximately 7,560 nautical miles
- Colombo–New York JFK: approximately 7,590 nautical miles
These figures do not prove that such routes would be profitable. They show that the A350 could create markets that are operationally beyond the realistic year-round capability of the A330-300.
What about routes already operated by the A330?
An important question is whether the A350 would have been inefficient when deployed on routes already served by the A330-300.
Not necessarily. The A350 would usually have a higher trip cost because it is a larger aircraft with a higher financing cost. But airlines do not evaluate aircraft purely by asking which one produces the cheapest individual flight. They also consider the following:
- Fuel consumed per passenger
- Cost per available seat-kilometre
- Passenger and cargo revenue
- Payload restrictions
- Maintenance costs
- Aircraft utilisation
- The number of passengers displaced when a flight is full
If there were sufficient demand for London, Melbourne, or Narita, the A350 could have been the more prudent aircraft.
An A330-300 might carry approximately 297 passengers in SriLankan configuration, while an A350-900 could accommodate around 330 or more in a sensible long-haul layout. If demand was only 240 passengers, the A330 would probably be preferable.
However, if demand was 310 passengers, the calculation changes. The A350 could carry passengers the A330 would leave behind, provide more baggage and cargo capacity, and spread its trip cost over more revenue-producing seats.
The lower trip cost of the A330 could then become a false economy.
London presents a particularly credible case because of its established year-round demand, diaspora traffic, tourism, business travel, baggage volumes, and connecting passengers.
Melbourne is also a strong candidate. Its distance allows the A350’s aerodynamic and engine efficiency to work over many hours of cruise, while its superior payload-range capability could provide greater flexibility in adverse winds.
Narita would be more finely balanced because it is a shorter sector. But where passenger and cargo demand approached A330 capacity, an A350 could still offer lower unit costs and higher total contribution.
The correct question was therefore not simply as to whether the A350 was more expensive to fly than the A330. It should have been, ‘Does the A350’s fuel efficiency, additional capacity, cargo contribution, and payload capability generate more value than its higher ownership and trip cost?’
The financial problem cannot be ignored
SriLankan reportedly expected to pay approximately $ 1.425 million per month for each leased A350, compared with about $ 1 million for an A330-300.
That meant an additional fixed cost of approximately $ 425,000 per aircraft per month – or $ 5.1 million annually.
For four aircraft, the lease premium alone approached $ 20.4 million per year.
The A350’s fuel savings, maintenance savings, and additional revenue would therefore have been needed to overcome this difference, together with the cost of training, simulators, spares, engineering support, and establishing a new fleet.
That is a serious hurdle. But it demonstrates that the central problem may have been the price and structure of the transaction – not the engineering suitability of the aircraft.
A badly financed efficient aircraft can be commercially worse than a well-financed older aircraft. That condemns the financing arrangement, not necessarily the aircraft selection.
Was the consultancy question too narrow?
Public records indicate that Skyworks found the A350 unsuitable for “the flight schedule evaluated”. Nyras reportedly compared the A350 against the A330-300 on substantially the same routes.
This is where I believe the rationale deserves closer examination.
If Paris and Frankfurt had already been selected for withdrawal, and Toronto, New York, or Auckland were not seriously modelled, the conclusion was almost built into the exercise: remove the routes that exploit the A350’s range, compare it with the A330 on the remaining routes, and then conclude that it is unnecessary.
Even on those existing routes, a comparison based primarily on trip cost could miss the A350’s lower unit costs, additional passenger revenue, cargo capability, and reduced payload restrictions.
Frankfurt and Paris were subsequently restored. Melbourne and Sydney developed into important long-haul destinations. Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Singapore Airlines have deployed A350s to Colombo, including on sectors much shorter than the aircraft’s maximum range.
Those airlines have larger hubs and different cost structures, so their operations do not prove that SriLankan’s A350 contracts were viable. They do, however, challenge the suggestion that the aircraft itself was inherently unsuitable for Colombo or for medium-to-long-haul services.
Two truths can coexist
None of this means SriLankan should automatically have accepted all eight A350s.
Eight aircraft may have been excessive. The lease rates appear extremely high. The contracts lacked adequate protection. A small subfleet would also have introduced additional training, engineering, spares, and financing costs.
A more responsible strategy might have begun with two or three A350-900s, phased the deliveries, and retained options for further aircraft once demand was demonstrated.
The A350s could then have been concentrated along the London, Melbourne, and other high-demand routes, while preserving the ability to explore Toronto, New York, or Auckland.
The full consultancy reports and their underlying financial models are still not readily available to the public. Until they are examined, several questions remain:
- Which routes and demand forecasts were evaluated?
- Were the A350s treated as additions or replacements for older A330s?
- Were passenger spill, cargo revenue, and payload restrictions included?
- Were Toronto, New York, and Auckland properly considered?
- Was the final cancellation package compared with deferment, renegotiation, or partial induction?
- Did the consultants distinguish the aircraft’s economics from SriLankan’s unusually expensive contractual terms?
I have prepared this analysis entirely from open-source information available in the public domain. I have not had access to the complete Nyras, Skyworks, or Seabury reports, their underlying financial models, or all the commercial documents considered by the airline and the Government.
I therefore do not present my conclusion as the final word. If any stakeholder or anyone possessing reliable evidence can demonstrate that any of my assumptions or conclusions are incorrect, I welcome that information and stand ready to correct the analysis publicly.
The purpose is not to defend a corrupt transaction. It is to ensure that accountability for corruption is kept separate from an objective assessment of aircraft engineering, flight operations, network strategy, and finance.
The corruption must be pursued without fear or favour. But punishing corruption does not require us to abandon sound technical analysis.
The deal may have been corrupt. The contracts may have been disastrous. Eight aircraft may have been too many.
But none of those facts, by themselves, proves that the A350-900 was the wrong aircraft for SriLankan Airlines.
It may instead show that the right aircraft was acquired in the wrong quantity, at the wrong price, through the wrong process – and then evaluated against a strategy too narrow to use it properly.
(The writer is an aviator with experience in both military and civil aviation, holding Airline Transport Pilot Licences [ATPLs] from Sri Lanka and Australia. He has presented at several academic conferences and remains passionate about all things aviation)
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)
The A350-900 aircraft earmarked for SriLankan Airlines during construction in Toulouse
PHOTO © CLEMENT ALLOING/FLICKR
Note to layout: crop photographers watermark on bottom right