Mattala Airport in full throttle
Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (HRI), which was once dubbed as a ghost airport by both local and foreign commentators, has suddenly turned into life becoming one of the busiest airports in the world, due to the temporary closure of Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) for the relaying of its decade-old runaway.
With the operations at BIA increasingly becoming chaotic, an increasing number of airlines has started flying in and out of HRI carrying thousands of passengers on a daily basis.
According to HRI officials, at least 14 airlines, including state-owned SriLankan Airlines and some charter flights, are now flying to Mattala, saving millions of dollars in foreign exchange to the country.
Mirror Business spotted a few of these flights from new airlines such as Sriwijaya Air, an Indonesian airline based in Jakarta, and Jordan Aviation, an airline based in Amman, flying in an out of HRI through Flightradar24, a global flight tracking service that provides with real-time information.
Even when BIA was in full operation, the low-cost carrier, flydubai, has been making regular flights to Mattala since the opening of the airport. SriLankan Airlines flights to Shanghai and Beijing also used to make stopovers at HRI.
The airport and aviation experts however question the selection of the location for Sri Lanka’s second international airport due to the presence of strong cross winds in the area, which makes a pilot’s job much harder in landing a passenger aircraft.
Also, frequent bird strikes and unavailability of parallel taxi ways and enough runaway exits have also been highlighted as major shortcomings of HRI.
However, they do not appear to consider them as reasons to abandon the facility, which can be easily made financially viable by way of fixing some of these limitations and making the airport attractive by offering competitive handling charges, etc.
However, the coalition regime, which came into power promising full-stop to the Rajapaksa vanity projects, took no time to turn one of HRI’s unused terminals into a warehouse for storing rice.
However, the government is reportedly finding bidders to sell the airport, likely to a Chinese operator, to settle the debt drawn from China to construct the airport.
(Source: Daily Mirror)
Latest Headlines in Sri Lanka
- Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne passes away April 16, 2024
- Palitha Thewarapperuma passes away April 16, 2024
- Sri Lanka debt restructuring stumbles as government rejects bondholders’ proposal April 16, 2024
- Sri Lanka must stay neutral in world conflicts – Harshana Rajakaruna April 16, 2024
- Sri Lanka commences IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings with positive bilateral talks April 16, 2024
Really! Where are all those experts, politicians and forum members who were going around telling us it was a white elephant, no planes could be landed there due to this that and birds?
The mattale Airport and hambatota harbor should be developed as one of the industrial hub of our Country like the Auckland Airport and the harbor is the industrial hub of New Zealand the other industrial hub of our country should be trincomalee . In hambantota there should be at least 3 BOT coal fueled Power stations each 3×300 Mw for the free trade zone in Hambatota and in Trincomalee 2 BOT coal fueled Power Stations each of 3x300Mw for the free trade zone in Trincomalee
Br careful like a plane it will dispersal to sky.