Dimal Arandara has been officially appointed as the Chairman of SriLankan Airlines, ending the acting tenure he has held since the end of March, NewsFirst reported on Wednesday.
Arandara, who had been serving as Acting Chairman, now assumes the role on a permanent basis. Prior to the elevation he was a member of the SriLankan Airlines Board of Directors, representing the Treasury, the broadcaster’s Zulfick Farzan reported, citing the airline.
The appointment formally fills a board-level vacancy that had been held open since 31 March 2026, when the previous chair stepped down and the carrier moved to acting leadership. A four-candidate shortlist for the chief executive role remains under review separately; Yasantha Dissanayake continues as Acting Chief Executive Officer, with the CEO post in acting capacity since March 2025.
The confirmation lands during one of the airline’s most active months of governance and financing decisions in years. Minister of Public Enterprises Anil Jayantha Fernando in late May said the government would convert SriLankan into a public-private partnership and inject Rs. 10 billion into the carrier as a top-up before any investor process is formalised. Just days later, opposition MP Harsha de Silva questioned the government’s decision to channel another Rs. 100 billion to the airline without a permanent chair or CEO in place — a constraint Wednesday’s appointment partly addresses.
The carrier is still working through deep financial losses. SriLankan reported a group loss of Rs. 2,735 million for 2024/25, and accumulated losses had crossed Rs. 632 billion by August 2025, leaving it technically insolvent. The Treasury restructured Rs. 91 billion of legacy debt in May to clean up the balance sheet ahead of any PPP-led equity injection.
The airline did not publish a fresh statement on board composition, term length, or whether Arandara will remain a Treasury representative on the directors’ bench after his elevation to chair.
