Sri Lanka Airports

If UL wishes to achieve some sort of Profit, they'd definitely have to look at Europe again

In my opinion, It was a stupid decision to Terminate CDG and FRA.
They should also look establish themselves as a regional carrier in South Asia as they are indeed miles ahead in terms of Service, Quality and their overall product on offer in comparison to other flag carriers in the Region (Air India, PIA, Biman)

But then again, with the current management in place, this would never materialize!

If UL does not resume FRA and CDG flights back, ultimately they will lose market share on Indian destinations too. Lots of Indian used to travel to Europe via CMB before.Not only India but travellers to BKK and HKG also used CMB as transit on the way to Europe. 330 Airbuses are under utilised already after cutting European flights.

Good news! Definitely Jaffna , Batticaloa & Trimcomalee need standard airport terminal with all mandatory facilities for any airport.

There are plans Jaffna is going to be developed as an international airport to connect with india. Which destinations could be connected with Jaffna? Won't this affect passenger traffic at CMB because the passengers from Northern Sri Lanka would fly to Chennai or Bangalore to reach other destinations (Europe etc). It will become a negative impact on CMB.

For the amount of passenger traffic in Sri Lanka, it would be better developing one international airport at high level. I believe Sri Lanka better increase more domestic flights from CMB to other domestic destination and make the domestic flight fare more affordable to the passengers. I think UL better consider resuming flights to Paris, Frankfurt and Milan.

Airports Authority of India to develop Sri Lanka's Palaly airport

India's state-owned airport authority has agreed to develop Palaly airport in Northern Sri Lanka and it will be the authority's first project in the island nation.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) said in a release yesterday, that it has signed an agreement with Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Govt. of India for preparation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) for development of Palaly Airport in Sri Lanka.

The agreement was recently signed by Executive Director (Land Management & Business Development), Airports Authority of India Anil Gupta and Joint Secretary, IOR, MEA, Govt. of India, Sanjay Panda.

An AAI official said all the technical and design aspects would be covered in the DPR, which is expected to be completed in three months' time.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Gupta said that over a period of time, AAI has developed more than 60 Airports in Metro and Non Metro cities in India and now AAI wants to leverage its expertise to other countries on a bigger scale.

Source-ColomboPage

: Sri Lanka Tuesday (11) opened a special counter at the departure terminal of the Bandaranaike International Airport to return the 15% VAT charged from foreign tourists for the goods purchased by them during their stay in Sri Lanka.

more airlines are flight into Bandaranaike International Airport

Aeroflot, the Russian Airline, will re-launch regular non-stop flights to Colombo from October 28, 2018 Among the other airlines planning to launch regular services to Sri Lanka in the next two months are Edelweiss (Switzerland) and Vistara (India). Several other major foreign airlines have also expressed an interest in flying to Sri Lanka while many existing operators have added extra capacity via bigger aircraft and/or more flight frequencies.*

update for apron

The construction work of Package B –“Remote Apron and Taxiways” commenced in April 2017 and the work is expected to be completed by October 2019.




update for bia second runway

Aziz said the government wants to build a 2nd runway as soon as possible as passenger and freight traffic was growing.The planned 2nd runway will be capable of handling the Airbus A380 aircraft, the world’s biggest commercial passenger jet.The construction of 2nd runway at its main airport, the Bandaranaike International Airport will be announced soon, once the identification of land is done.

update for bia terminal 2

A concessionary loan agreement of approximately Rs. 56 billion for the construction of a new multi-level terminal building (Terminal 2) is expected to more than double passenger capacity from 6 to 15 million passengers per annum on completion, proponents of the project said.
The agreement to build the new terminal with an approximate floor area of 180,000 m2, where arrivals and departures are separated vertically, consists of two pier buildings namely Pier 2 and Pier 3 was signed between the Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) recently.

I was speaking to one of the BIA staff about the new apron. He said that the ground is still being digged. When is the completion date of new apron?

Anyone have any up to date pictures or video of the new aprons at BIA?

Maldives is building a new runway adjusting to the existing runway and the existing runway will be converted into a taxiway this will increase the runway capacity and eventually the airport capacity. Also they are constructing a new terminal to accommodate the increasing the demand with 6 aerobridges. I saw this few weeks back at the airport.

Any possibility CMB can have a second runway parallel to the current runway ?

New Runway for Velana International Airport MALE

Male International airport is getting a new runway with Chinese assistance.

This came into light when recently when an Air India flight mistakenly landed on the runway being constructed.

So what is our government still doing about the BIA ? There is only "talk" of the new terminal now for years. Nothing seems to be happening.

Also a new 2 km bridge connecting Male Airport & Male city has been constructed also with Chinese assistance.

Old news.

An Etihad Airways flight, EY451 traveling from Sydney to Abu Dhabi made a landing at BIA (Bandaranaike International Airport), Katunayake for refueling and crew exchange on Wednesday, 17th at 10.00 p.m. (22.00 hrs) and departed at 11.48 p.m. (23.48 hrs) on the same night. At that time, 354 passengers were on board.
A-380 operations for commercial, technical and other purposes can now be facilitated at BIA after the upgrading of the aerodrome system which took place during the Runway Project successfully completed in 2017.

Sri Lanka mulls cutting excessive airport fees to boost tourism

Sri Lanka is reviewing how to reduce airport fees to make the country more competitive with the rest of Asia and make the country more attractive to tourists Sri Lanka's tourism minister said.