The Mattala International Airport (MRIA) will play an even bigger role in the future not only as a hub for crew changers, but for passenger and cargo movements as well, Board member of Airport & Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd, Tilak Weerasinghe said.
He said that the Katunayake International Airport is forced to operate half of its capacity due to the Covid-19 health guidelines and hence MIRA has to be used as an alternative airport. It takes around 5 hours to clear passengers from one aircraft due to new health guidelines limiting the capacity of BIA.
During the last three weeks MRIA handled 15 aircraft movements also bringing in the much needed revenue to the airport.
Weerasinghe said that several infrastructure facilities were added to MRIA to speed up crew changes where minimal contact is there between immigration and passengers. New glass screens were installed and passenger announcements systems too were installed. “It’s easy to add infrastructure to MRIA as it’s a new airport and is smaller in size.”
He said that there are over 40,000 Sri Lankans who wish to come back to Sri Lanka and their passage to Sri Lanka is now being coordinated.
“With some countries returning to new normal, tourism too could pick up towards the end of the year and here too some flights would be directed to MRIA. “AASL is in the process of developing the airport to be the most preferred exotic tourism-based destination in the near future.”
“Because of the strategic location, at the southernmost tip of the Indian Ocean right in the center of aviation and maritime routes connecting the East and the West and also improved service levels of international airports, seaports and the service providers, Sri Lanka is becoming a popular destination in the international maritime and aviation industry and aviation industry players to choose the MRIA as a destination for international ship crew changes,” said Shehan Sumanasekara, Director, AASL.
“Another key factor behind this has been the developed road network connecting the airports and the seaports such as the Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa International Seaport and the Galle harbour.”
Meanwhile, under the directives of Major General (Rtd) G. A. Chandrasiri, Chairman, Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited, a meeting was held with Japan’s Taisei Corporation, the contractor of the BIA Terminal 2 project, Japan Airport Consultants (JAC) and the senior officials of AASL to accelerate the BIA Terminal 2 project. The officials discussed the workforce mobilization plans, foreign staff facilitation, and staffing of the Project Management Unit (PMU).
The new state of the art passenger terminal when completed will have the capacity to handle 9 million passenger movements which will increase the total handling capacity at BIA to 15 million per annum.
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