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| Saturday, 27 September 2003 |
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Domestic airport at Katunayake by Shirajiv Sirimane A domestic airport adjoining the Bandaranike International airport will be opened next year. According to the Minister of Tourism Gamini Lokuge, a part of the Air Force base adjoining the international airport would be acquired for this proposed project. The Minister said that this would be a major boom for the tourists who complain that they have to spend a lot of time for travelling. It takes over two hours to travel to the closest domestic airport at Ratmalana. "We have no plans of abandoning the Ratmalana airport but we want to shift some of the domestic traffic from Ratmalana to the Colombo airport," he said. He said that the domestic airport would also be useful to handle the Charter flights. Lokuge said that most of the infrastructure for this project is currently available and only a few changers are needed. He said that they are also hoping to introduce a round trip air ticket where a foreigner could purchase both the international and the domestic air ticket at the same time. "This would automatically earn the passenger a concession as well." The three Dominic airline operators, Lion Air, Serendib Express and Expo Aviation had been lobbying for a long time to for a domestic airport adjoining the Colombo airport. He said that the SriLankan Airlines is in the process of introducing 2 floater aircraft which could land both in water and on land. Meanwhile a Rs. 10 billion Bandaranaike International Airport development project was inaugurated at the airport last week. Chairman, Airport Aviation Services Sri Lanka Ltd, Hemasiri Fernando said that the entire project, will be completed in two years. "The project includes the construction of a new apron providing parking facilities for four additional aircraft." For the first time in Sri Lanka the use of passenger boarding bridges will be introduced with the construction of a new Pier while additional passenger baggage belts too would be built. A new cargo building with an annual capacity of over 100,000 tons too would be built. In addition many infrastructure development projects would be under taken to make Colombo International airport one of the best airports in the region. The Colombo airport which was formally known as the Royal Air Force base was converted to a commercial airport in 1963 with assistance from the Canadian Government and today passenger movement has grown by 154% to 2.77 million per year in the past ten years. |
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