Air Mauritius (MK, Mauritius) incurred losses of MUR1.22 billion Mauritian rupees (USD27 million) resulting from aircraft sales between 2017 and 2021, according to the Indian Ocean island's Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, who declared that funds "were stolen" from the airline and has vowed to investigate and prosecute those responsible.

The prime minister was responding in the National Assembly on April 15 to a question from member of parliament Manoj Seeburn regarding losses from aircraft sales and capital injected into the airline in the decade between December 2014 and December 2024.

As reported by the Mauritian French-language daily L'Express, Ramgoolam disclosed that Air Mauritius had recorded a profit of MUR359.2 million (USD8 million) in 2013-2014 but suffered cumulative losses of MUR7.72 billion (USD171 million) between 2015 and 2024.

He said several aircraft sales contributed to these losses:

  • 2017-2018: One A340-300 was sold under a leaseback deal, incurring a loss of MUR107.8 million (USD2.4 million);
  • 2021-2022 (during Air Mauritius' administration): Two A319-100s were sold in June 2021 at a loss of MUR338.1 million (USD7.5 million), and one A330-200 was sold in November 2021 at a loss of MUR637 million (USD14 million);
  • two A340-300s were dismantled and sold for parts under a June 2021 agreement with a private company, resulting in a loss of MUR137.2 million (USD3 million).

While the government did not inject capital directly into Air Mauritius, it did so indirectly via the state-owned shareholder Airport Holdings Ltd (AHL), which was granted a MUR12 billion (USD266 million) advance in September 2021 during a "watershed" meeting. This was intended to fund the airline's urgent needs while it was under voluntary administration.

Ramgoolam alleged that the then Ministry of Finance engineered AHL’s creation to manipulate the country’s financial indicators, specifically to present a lower debt-to-GDP ratio. AHL grouped 23 entities, including Air Mauritius, and although the actual net asset value was MUR10 billion (USD222 million), an additional MUR41 billion (USD910 million) in "goodwill" was added, bringing the total declared value to MUR51 billion (USD1.13 billion).

He claimed this artificial inflation of value was used to justify the MUR25 billion (USD555 million) investment by the Mauritius Investment Corporation (MIC) for a 25% stake in AHL, despite the real asset value estimated by the World Bank being just MUR5 billion (USD111 million).

The prime minister presented this as a deliberate financial misrepresentation and misuse of public funds. "In other words, someone stole the money. And we're going to find out who."

He added that AHL had mandated the auditing firm KPMG to investigate an amount of MUR2.5 billion (USD55.5 million) that should have been kept as working capital - a cash requirement for Air Mauritius - but which was used for other purposes and for which "we still need to understand where the money went and whether there was proper authorisation, since this amount [was] derailed from its initial objective." He said a KPMG forensic audit was underway to investigate the irregular financial calculations.