SriLankan to break even by end 2014/15; searching for recovering revenues
National carrier SriLankan Airlines, currently operating at a loss is looking to break even by 2014/15, its CEO Kapila Chandrasena said at the recently concluded International Air Travel Association (IATA) Global Aviation Human Capital for the second yea in Colombo this week.
Dr. Guido Gianasso
However, he said this would depend greatly on jet fuel noting that these prices were currently on the rise and contributing to 45 per cent of the cost of the airline.
The airline is currently working on recovering its losses and was injected with cabinet-approved US$500 million dollar assistance for over a five year period.
In this respect, the airline hopes to induct fuel efficient carriers and would be engaged in a modernization and replacement of its existing fleet on the long and medium haul routes.
In addition, Mr. Chandrasena explained the carrier wants to achieve at least a 60% growth in its revenue and increase passenger capacity.
Further recovery of revenue is sought through plans of improving its training capacity by establishing a world class centre for excellence for regional training.
In addition it is currently targeting an Aircraft Maintenance and Repair Activities at Katunayake, he said.
Speaking of the airline’s people, its Chairman Nishantha Wickremesinghe said “we realize we cannot position ourselves unless we have trained personnel.”
He noted that in the future plans were underway to ensure the Katunayake International Airport would become a regional hub in training pilots.
The expansion at the Katunayake airport is expected to double the current passenger capacity of 6 million, he said adding that the airline too was involved in expansion plans as part of the government’s initiative.
Nishantha Wickremesinghe
IATA Chief People and Performance officer and Vice Chairman Human Capital Council Ray Gammell said they would be looking at establishing the IATA Human Capital network as it was gathering momentum based on the interest expressed by member airlines.
Through this, he noted that they aim to ensure a people’s agenda is formed to address the issue of employees. He posed a challenge to HR managers stating that this should represent the people, gender and skill and determination. IATA Vice President Human Capital Dr. Guido Gianasso said the global aviation body has established a database of its people that allow those with access to it to identify anyone at your finger-tips with information now available for ipad users as well.
He said the conference was held with the aim of expanding on the focus for human capital development with the first such conference held in Singapore last year. In a pre-conference media briefing, he spoke of significant gaps between demand and supply of global aviation industry workforce saying the sector finds it difficult to attract new people. The industry today has been downgraded to a ‘second class’ status in terms of attracting job seekers, Dr. Gianasso added.
Senior Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama speaking on the occasion said competition in the aviation industry would mainly come from human personalities and potential as opposed to just steel tubes.
In this context, he believed today growth was focused on human capital and that in the next decade or so there would be intense competition for the services.
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