Sri Lanka airport agency says usually profitable, 2022 a currency loss

ECONOMYEXT – Sri Lanka’s state-run airport authority says a 1.6 billion rupees loss up to June 2022 came from foreign exchange denominated loans and cost on borrowings for Mattala airport and the company is usually profitable.

Sri Lanka’s Airport and Aviation Services Ltd, said it consistently made profits until the Covid-19 pandemic started in 2020.

“Before the economic downturn triggered by the Easter attack in 2019 followed by the pandemic, we were a profit-making enterprise that regularly contributed large amounts of funds to the state coffers by way of dividends and taxes,” Airport and Aviation Sri Lanka said in a statement.

AASL says Sri Lankan airports have been reporting profits with 2019 recording 15.2 billion rupees.

“Before the economic downturn triggered by the Easter attack in 2019 followed by the pandemic, we were a profit-making enterprise that regularly contributed large amounts of funds to the state coffers by way of dividends and taxes,” Airport and Aviation Sri Lanka said in a statement.

“The overall operating loss of the company was due to the repayment of the loan instalments in foreign exchange on the loans obtained for MRIA.”

The total international aircraft movements handled by all airports operated by AASL had dropped to 66 percent to 20,881 in 2020 from 62,195 in 2019.

The international passenger movements had fallen 76 percent to 2.3 million from 9.9 million.

It says the main Bandaranaike International Airport had earned 3.9 billion rupees in 2021 and 16.7 billion rupees up to June 2022.

But the loss in the six months to June 2021 came forex losses on loans.

Sri Lanka defaulted for the first time in April 2022 in the worst currency crisis.

Sri Lanka’s state enterprises also makes losses. (Colombo/Sep04/2022)