SriLankan Airlines is under fire after a flight bound for Singapore was forced to make an emergency landing in Indonesia due to a technical fault, just days after the financially troubled carrier added a new aircraft to its fleet at a reported cost of USD 360,000 per month.
Flight UL 306, which departed from Katunayake on the evening of June 5, was diverted mid-route and landed at Kuala Namu International Airport in Medan, Indonesia. A Sri Lankan technical team had to be flown in from Jakarta to handle the situation. The airlines said it was "technical issue".
Frustrated passengers reported a lack of communication, poor facilities, and prolonged delays at the airport.
This technical failure comes at a time when SriLankan Airlines is aggressively pursuing fleet expansion despite its deepening financial crisis.
On June 3, the airline received a 13.7-year-old Airbus A330-200, leased from Carlyle Aviation Partners. The monthly lease on the aircraft, which was negotiated by the previous government, is said to cost around USD 360,000, though the latest government has declined to reveal the actual figure.
The widebody, which last flew for South Korea’s Fly Gangwon and Indonesia’s Garuda, is the airline’s first major fleet addition in seven years.
Chairman Sarath Ganegoda hailed the delivery as a “milestone” and said negotiations were underway to bring in two more aircraft by the end of the year. However, he also admitted that previous plans to lease aircraft were scrapped and criticised the lack of long-term fleet planning under past administrations.
"It’s not easy for us to compete with other airlines with our [existing] hardware," he said. "We can't afford to go for brand new state-of-the-art aircraft." The 260-passenger two-cabin configured 13.7-year-old aircraft formerly flew for Fly Gangwon, and before that, Garuda Indonesia.
The airline currently operates a fleet of 23 aircraft which are all leased, across both its short- and long-haul operations. Many of the planes are over a decade old, and reliability issues have become increasingly common. Last year, the airline’s then-CEO Richard Nuttall said that SriLankan’s poor credit standing made it difficult to secure newer, more reliable aircraft.
