WORLD NEWS: RAT GROUNDS SRI LANKAN NATIONAL AIRLINE FOR THREE DAYS
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Agency Report
The national airline of Sri Lanka blamed a rat on Tuesday for the three-day plane grounding, which resulted in chaotic delays and raised concerns that the cash-strapped airline would lose investors.
When the stowaway rodent was seen having fun on Thursday’s Sri Lankan Airlines Airbus A330 flight from the Pakistani city of Lahore, an aircraft search was launched to make sure it hadn’t chewed through any important parts.
The plane has now resumed flights, but the grounding affected the entire schedule, according to an airline official.
“The aircraft was grounded for three days at Colombo,” an airline official said, declining to be named. “The plane could not be flown without making sure that the rat was accounted for. It was found dead.”
The state-owned airline, which had accumulated losses of more than $1.8 billion at the end of March 2023, has three other aircraft grounded for over a year out of a fleet of 23.
The carrier lacks the foreign exchange necessary to cover the engines’ required overhauls.
The rogue rodent may deter “the few investors” interested in buying the indebted airline, Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva warned reporters.Its sale has been attempted but failed by several governments. The airline was offered one dollar by the previous government, but no one was interested.
The International Monetary Fund has emphasised that these state-owned businesses place a significant financial burden on the country’s budget. The IMF helped save Sri Lanka last year with a $2.9 billion loan spread over four years.
The airline was successful up until 2008, when a disagreement with then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa led to the termination of a management agreement with Emirates.
The carrier had refused to bump fare-paying passengers and give their seats to 35 members of Rajapaksa’s family, who were returning from a holiday in London.
Ironically, one of the airline’s most profitable years was in 2001, when the Tamil Tigers separatist movement destroyed several aircraft in an attack — with the insurance payouts and the removal of excess capacity boosting its income.
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