SRI Lanka’s debt-ridden national carrier is offering three A330s to Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) under a wet lease arrangement, officials said last week.
Sri Lanka’s minister of public enterprises development Kabir Hashim announced last week that SriLankan Airlines’ representatives were in Islamabad finalising negotiations.
“PIA will use the A330 aircrafts, which is to be handed over on a wet lease, to fly the London-Lahore-Islamabad routes,” the minister, whose ministry controls the airline, said.
The planes were formerly being used on routes to Paris, Rome and Frankfurt. The airline terminated flights to Rome in May and will be discontinuing flights to Paris and Frankfurt from November in a cost-cutting exercise.
The airline has been struggling with a US$3.5 billion debt and is now seeking a foreign partner to pull it out of the woods.
Hashim also said the airline’s budget subsidiary, Mihin Lanka, will be brought under the parent wing and operated under one single brand, again as a cut-cutting move.
