Colombo, May 5 – State-run SriLankan Airlines has released data of some of the losses it made during 2016 saying 6.49 billion rupees before interest costs and one-off charges, up from 2.9 billion rupees a year earlier, despite falling oil prices.
It is not clear why full losses had not been released and why loss after finance charges was not released in the statement, the EconomyNext reported.
The airline also had to pay penalties for cancelled Airbus A350 orders, which was not included in the numbers released.
The central bank in its annual report for calendar 2016 said SriLankan Airlines lost 14.1 billion rupees, up from 4.9 billion rupees a year earlier.
“The year was profoundly challenging for airlines worldwide, with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimating an 8 percent global decline in air fares in USD terms,” SriLankan said in a statement.
“Despite these challenging conditions, SriLankan managed to control the decline in its average fares to only 3 percent in USD terms year-over-year – a satisfactory performance in relation to many leading airlines in the world who have seen significantly higher fare declines.”
Many airlines have reported better results with lower fuel prices in 2016. Even state-run Air India, which has been burning cash like other third world state-run airlines have shown a turnaround after 10 years in 2016 helped by lower fuel prices.
Fuel prices picked up towards the second part of the year.
SriLankan’s operations however was hit by a partial closure of Colombo airport in the first quarter of calendar 2017.
India’s privately owned Jet Airways made profits of 35 billion Indian rupees in the nine months to December.
