After posting an operating profit for the first time in 15 years and becoming privatised, SriLankan Airlines should be a target for takeover by Gulf carriers, according to Richard Nuttall, the airline’s chief executive.
Nuttall said that the airline’s simple access to its Asian neighbour might be very advantageous to Gulf operators. India is the great prize for everyone, he declared.
Emirates, which formerly held 40% of SriLankan, was one of the carriers he said might comply with the Colombo government’s desire to privatise the airline.
Emirates controlled a portion of it for ten years before the Sri Lankan government purchased all of the airline’s shares in 2008. In that year, Sri Lanka made a profit of around $30 million, but during the following seven years, while being run by the government, it lost $875 million.
When asked if the airline based in Dubai was one among the potential bidders, Mr. Nuttall responded that he could not “speak for either Emirates or anyone else in the Gulf,” but that the government intended to “look for expressions of interest in the coming months and they want to do that fast.”
A triple blow to Sri Lanka has left it severely damaged: the Covid-19 pandemic-related decline in tourism; the Isis-planned Easter suicide bombings in 2019; and the financial turmoil of the previous year.
