SriLankan may resume day flights to certain destinations: KIA run way renovations to end two weeks ahead | Daily News

SriLankan may resume day flights to certain destinations: KIA run way renovations to end two weeks ahead

The Colombo International Airport (KIA) renovation work and the relaying of the run way will be completed by end of this month ahead of schedule.

“We will be able to open the airport two weeks ahead of time,” a Transport and Civil Aviation Ministry official said. The staff and the engineers had put their maximum effort and have gone out of their way to complete this task ahead of schedule.

However the benefits of this will not go to the passengers using the airport since the airlines are not in a position to change their schedules.The airport, although open 24 hours will only have traffic flowing in from 6 p.m. to 8 30 a.m. daily.

However there is a possibility that SriLankan Airlines may resume some of their scheduled flights to Indian destinations during day time.

Meanwhile the travel industry is requesting the Sri Lankan Airlines not to halt the Mattala airport (MRIA) to China operations since many Chinese are now using Mattala as a gateway and even travel agents are seeing packages form them.

“We now offer China Colombo and Mattala China to them which is gaining in popularity, since they could see and explore more of Sri Lanka and board from a different airport.”

Records from Sri Lanka indicate that one particular flight taking off from Mattala had 102 Chinese passengers and two business class passengers boarding to the flight from the Mattala Airport. Only 52 passengers had boarded from Colombo.”

SriLankan Airlines said the airport day time closure cost them over US$ 50 million in losses. SriLankan could not get their flight schedules changed for Chinese destinations.The airline which earlier said they were halting SriLankan Airlines’ Mattala operations since landing and taking off from there was a huge cost.

But six months later the national carrier had to eat their own words and was forced to land their China bound flights at Mattala and while away time for close to three hours. 


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