SriLankan Airlines Chairman Dimal Arandara has come under scrutiny over a proposal to address the national carrier’s staff-to-aircraft ratio by acquiring more aircraft rather than reducing its workforce, the Daily Mirror reported.
Testifying before the Parliamentary Sectoral Oversight Committee on Infrastructure and Strategic Development, Arandara defended fleet expansion as a remedy for the imbalance. “When you divide the number of staff by the 23 aircraft we have, the number of maintenance staff per aircraft is high. To address this, the fleet must definitely be increased,” he said.
He pointed to sharply discounted lease rates on older aircraft, saying that where the airline previously paid US$800,000 a month, from December it is paying US$43,000 for a wide-body. Arandara acknowledged the reliance on ageing planes, noting the carrier generally leases aircraft seven to eight years old, adding to a fleet with an average age of 12 years.
Analysts cited by the Daily Mirror argue the approach understates back-end costs. While the airline’s total lease cost stood at US$78.6 million in the last financial year, maintenance costs reached US$207.3 million. Adding older aircraft, critics say, would deepen that burden and erode lease savings, while extra capacity without matching demand risks diluting yields — a pointed concern given that 38 of the airline’s 52 routes are already loss-making, including all 15 routes to India.
The airline has operated without a permanent chief executive for more than a year and four months, receiving 172 applications in an initial round and over 200 in a second. Leadership told the committee it could not match the salary expectations of qualified foreign aviation executives.
Committee chairman MP S.M. Marikkar was sharply critical. “It is a tragic situation that for about a year and four months we haven’t been able to find a CEO. We cannot find someone from within, nor can we find someone externally. It shows exactly where we stand as an airline,” he said, asking whether there were “really no capable people in Sri Lanka” for the role.
Marikkar also rejected the recruitment panel’s insistence on comprehensive aviation experience. “A CEO doesn’t need to have expertise in every single area,” he said. “That is why there are specialists and department heads.”
Arandara said restructuring plans are being studied by an expert committee chaired by Senior Presidential Advisor on Digital Economy Dr Hans Wijayasuriya. Observers noted that neither that committee nor the chairman himself has prior aviation expertise.
The vacuum has persisted since the CEO search was narrowed to four candidates in April.
