Rs 750 m to develop domestic airports

Indunil Hewage

The government has allocated US$ 750 million to develop several domestic airports in the coming years to fulfill the vision of making Sri Lanka the future aviation hub in the region.

The government is hoping to establish three more domestic airports in Kandy, Nuwara-Eliya and Iranamadu. It hopes to obtain the required funding for the project either through private sector investors or government funds.

“However, the project is still at the discussion level”, Aviation Minister Priyankara Jayaratne said.

Plans are also on to introduce an online checking system. Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited is in discussions with SriLankan Airlines’ ground handling service on the particular technology.

BIA will implement this system most probably next year if the requirements are successfully met.

In addition ,BIA is also hoping to have a domestic terminal at the airport by mid next year, Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited Executive Director Johanne Jayaratne told Daily News Business. Parallel to the above expansion plan, Palali, Trincomalee, Ampara and Koggala airstrips will come under major renovation and the Ratmalana airport will be developed as a city airport and high end corporates will manage to operate private jets at the Ratmalana airport. The second stage of BIA expansion plans will also commence in mid 2012.

The BIA is in discussions with the Japan International Cooperation Agency to obtain the required funding for the project. It is expected to complete the project by 2016. In addition the Mattala Airport will be opened in 2012 and will operate one million passengers at the initial stage and the passenger number will be increased upto five million by 2018.

In keeping with the ongoing BIA’s aggressive expansion plan, more checking counters and two more bus gates will be added shortly.

The BIA has also managed to record around five million passenger movements by the end of October this year as against its current passenger movement capacity level of six million per annum.