With nearly 6,000 staff, Sri Lankan Airlines is the biggest and most expensive of the cash-hemorrhaging state companies that have drained the budget and compounded the worst financial crisis in Sri Lanka’s history.

The carrier lost 163.58 billion rupees (US $ 525 million) in the year to March 2022, it said in a statement - more than three times its deficit in the previous 12 months, when air travel was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The airline missed interest payments on a US $ 175 million bond in December, eight months after the government itself defaulted on its sovereign debt after running out of foreign exchange.

The nation’s unprecedented financial crisis ‘posed a greater challenge to the airline, as it was only beginning to recover from the largest challenge faced since its inception, the pandemic’, Chairman Ashok Pathirage said.

Pathirage said he hoped ‘restructuring’ would make SriLankan viable but did not discuss plans to sell off the carrier.