SriLankan Airlines (UL, Colombo International) has cut around 1,000 contractor, trainee, and other outsourced jobs but has yet to make any decisions regarding its permanent staff, Chairman Ashok Pathirage said.

According to LankaNewsWeb, Pathirage underlined that while the airline hoped to resume scheduled operations in June, the Sri Lankan government had yet to announce any plans for the lifting of border restrictions.

For now, the flag carrier continues to focus on cargo and repatriation flights. Besides deploying most of its A330 widebodies on cargo-only flights, albeit with no cabin modifications, SriLankan Airlines has secured initial approval from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAASL) to remove passenger facilities from one of its A330-300s and use it as a makeshift dedicated freighter.

The airline said that it had been operating an increased number of cargo-only flights from May 18.

"These dedicated cargo flights [are] a vital link for local exporters to take their produce to new and existing international markets and will also enable the importation of much needed raw materials," the airline said.

According to the ch-aviation fleets module, SriLankan does not operate any freighter aircraft.