SriLankan Airlines has now contained its losses and the break-even point is not far away, according to a SriLankan official. "The downward trend seen (in the company) in February has now been arrested. In July and in August we significantly brought down the losses. Now the losses are significantly contained," Manoj Gunawardena, CEO, SriLankan Airlines said on Tuesday at the 24th LBR-LBO CEO Forum.

Speaking on 'Plane sense-making sense out of a beleaguered business', he said that Thursday and Friday will see the staff of the national carrier fly over from the world over for the SriLankan Airlines' Worldwide conference, where they will be briefed on the national carrier's 'business transformation'.
"We will be focusing on four thrust areas with regard to the business transformation," he said, explaining that the company will be critically looking at unprofitable routes, will work at transforming the outdated appearance of SriLankan, will turn the present ancillary businesses into strategic ones and unleash the current in-house capabilities of the airline.

He also said that Rome might be one of the new destinations for SriLankan. "This is because we are the largest carrier to the Maldives and Italians are the Maldives' largest tourists," he added. He said that SriLankan carries three million passengers each year. "But right now, adding passengers will add red ink to our bottom lines," he said. Mr. Gunawadena said at a time where the airline industry is down in the dumps the world over, a beleaguered airline has only tow options – either to declare bankruptcy or go in for consolidation.

"But bankruptcy is not an option. We need to in such a situation focus on the fundamentals of economic realities and go on a simple assessment of profit and loss on any given route," he said. He said the airline has made a decision to cut costs through fuel efficiency primarily, amongst other areas. "Presently we are not protecting market share nor market presence," he added. "From October 1 we have arrangements with Etihad to replace unprofitable routes on a code sharing basis," he further said.

He also said that the airline will get a new look in terms of staff, new seats and also aircraft. "Our ancillary businesses such as cargo, third party airport and ground handling, catering and the engineering departments will be turned into strategic business units," he said.

He said the airline is in the process of setting up a global call centre here in Sri Lanka. He also noted, "A global call centre is something we should have had long years ago. We will unleash the current in house capabilities such as call centre." He said the company is finalizing orders for new narrow bodied aircraft.
"Very soon we will have satellite communications on board our aircraft, enabling passengers to use their laptop computers and mobile telephones," he said.

Mr. Gunawardene said the airline is negotiating with the Airport and Aviation Authority for a new agreement to take over the cargo handling terminal at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA). "This will double our cargo handling business," he said. He noted that SriLankan has an idea to expand its airport handling services to the South Asian region, but these plans are still in the formative stage.

He emphasized that SriLankan is a national asset and at a time when the country is going through numerous problems, the airline does not expect to be 'bailed out' by the state. "At this time we do not want to burden the state, nor have we asked for a red cent from the state," he said.