State-owned SriLankan Airlines has defaulted on a $175 million bond as it was unable to meet a $6 million interest payment, its chairperson told Reuters on Thursday.

"We will follow treasury guidelines on this. We are also engaging with bondholders," Ashok Pathirage said. (Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe and Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Krishna N. Das)