SriLankan owed over LKR 122 million for Rajapaksa flights

The Presidential Secretariat and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has to pay Rs. 122.3 million to SriLankan Airlines for several flights chartered for former Head of State Mahinda Rajapaksa’s delegations, Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) on irregularities at SriLankan Airlines, SriLankan Catering and Mihin Lanka was informed yesterday. 

According to Sumudu Priyanka Upatissa, the Manager of Revenue Management and Network Planning of SriLankan Airlines, it was revealed that the airline had attempted to secure these payments by writing to the Secretaries of these institutions. 

He said most of these flights involved the then Head of State and he used to travel by the charter flights. In the normal process, he said they charge a 2 percent interest for the chartered flights, but they had never charged interest for this outstanding amount. “Rather they wanted to obtain the capital amount,” he added. 

Rajapaksa's flights included trips to Johannesburg, Tel Aviv, Rome and Bolivia, where SriLankan had no regular flights. A chartered flight to Johannesburg in December 2013, carried only 26 passengers though it had seating facilities for 243 passengers. The Presidential Secretariat paid the airline Rs.36 million for the flight. The aircraft, A340, had 38 business class seats and 205 economy class seats. 

Upatissa further said that for another chartered flight to Tel Aviv, Israel, in January 2014, the Presidential Secretariat had paid the airline Rs.46.3 million. Only 48 passengers had traveled in the flight, which could carry 312 passengers. The plane landed first in Amman, the capital of Jordan, where 42 passengers got off, while only six people flew to Tel Aviv.

The Presidential Secretariat had also refrained from paying Rs. 43.4 million for a chartered flight to Rome in October 2014. Only 69 passengers had traveled in that aircraft, which could carry 312 passengers.