Sri Lanka's national airline on Tuesday accused a rat of grounding one of its Airbus planes for three days, causing delays, and feared its image would be lost among future investors who would save the plane.
The rodent was spotted trying to exploit a SriLankan Airlines flight from the Pakistani city of Lahore on Thursday, forcing the company to carefully check to make sure it hadn't chewed on critical components of the plane.
According to an airline representative, the aircraft has since resumed operations, but the delay affected the flight schedule and also affected other flights.
“The plane remained grounded in Colombo for three days” and could not “fly without ensuring the rat was found,” he said, adding that the rodent was found dead.
The airline, whose cumulative losses stood at $1.8 billion at the end of March 2023, also lacks foreign currency to finance mandatory engine overhauls that sidelined three of its airlines for more than a year. 23 devices.
Successive governments have failed to resell SriLankan Airlines, and one government even unsuccessfully lowered the price to a token dollar.
Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva told reporters that the secret rat risked scaring off “the few investors” who were still interested. It is one of those public companies considered by the International Monetary Fund to be a drain on the state budget and bailed out Sri Lanka in 2023 with a loan of $2.9 billion over four years.
SriLankan Airlines was profitable until a management contract with Emirates was terminated in 2008 following a dispute with Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015. The company had refused to let his family, who were returning from vacation in London, use the seats for other passengers.
Ironically, 2001 was one of the best years, thanks to insurance payments to cover the destruction of aircraft in an attack by the separatist Tamil Tiger movement, which also provided an unexpected solution to the problem of oversupply.