SriLankan Airlines: Arrival At Crunch Time

By Sarath de Alwis –September 7, 2016 

Sarath de Alwis

Ten expressions of interest (EOIs) have been received for SriLankan Airlines, which will be whittled down in the coming months before the Government begins official talks to enter in to a public –private partnership with an international company, a top official said, but a debt sharing agreement appears unlikely. ~ News Report Daily FT 7th September 2016

Most Air Lines lose money. The state owned beasts among them lose more. Quite apart from its accumulated losses of nearly Rupees 107 Billion there is something else that is wrong with Sri Lankan Airlines. Successive regimes have resorted to offer a seat on the Board of the National Carrier to a very special type of people. They come from the entitlement class. Those selected are the Cognoscenti drawn from the corporate world who have access to the sanctum sanctorum of, to follow the genesis in order, Ward Place, St Sebastian in Hulftsdorp, Rosmead Palce and Fifth Avenue.

There was an implicit aura of glamour associated with the particular assignment. The ability to fly to distant places after a board meeting or a game of golf is an exotic experience not to mention the fun of eating out of season fruit and washing it down with Champaign – that Charles Dickens described as elegant extras of life.

President Premadasa put his son in law on the board. President Rajapaksa made his brother in law the Chairman. President Chandrika Kumaratunga before she took the sensible decision to hand over the management to Emirates air lines, chose a family confidante who was clever and crafty to convert the pull and prestige of her mother Mrs. Sirmavo Bandaranaike among nonaligned tea drinking Arabs, in to a ‘Hotsy Totsy fortune, acquiring in the process, the reputation of a business genius.

The present ‘yaha palana’ Prime Minister seems to have followed the precedent and offered the bounty and bonanza to buddies. Its present composition is eloquent testimony.

Except for two, the son of a former secretary to a former president, and another whose allegiance is ditto to the same President, all others are Royal College buddies of the Prime Minster. They have a common denominator. They all have abiding interests, professional or private, beyond the shores of Sri Lanka. A seat on the Board of the Air Line is ‘open sesame’ to the cave of unlimited travel just as in ‘Arabian Nights.’

The Chairman of SriLankan Airlines, in a recent interview has described his board in superlative terms. He should. They share a common distinction – their knowledge of the aviation industry is as good as the knowledge of the hotel concierge on where to eat in the city- third party received wisdom.

Today, we need on the board of the Air Line, persons who are equipped to persuade possible investors why they should put their good money in to a proposition that has gone sour. We need men who can convincingly read the future. Men who will not buy the cock and bull story that we can create a global hub in Colombo to compete with the two super connectors in Dubai and Singapore which seems to have escaped the attention of the present Brahmins presiding over the National Carrier.

Creating global Aviation Hubs requires much more than platitudes an irrelevant profundities. Top ten Aviation Hubs by region as shown by OAG the authority on aviation Intelligence has its own narrative.

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