An ambitious program has been launched to reactivate the Mattala international airport (MRIA) once again to turn it around to a profit making one.
Director General Civil Aviation Authority, P. a. Jayakantha speaking to Daily News Business said that as a first step towards this initiative one of the leading private airlines of the Russian Federation, Red Wings, will start charter flight operations to MRIA with effect from (29) today.
They will deploy a Boeing 772 aircraft which could carry 600 passengers. “Initially it will operate two flights per week and soon will convert their flights to a scheduled operation.”
The GSA for Red Wings is Lanka Sportreizen owned by Tilak Weerasinghe. The certificate to operate MIRA for Red Wings was also handed over yesterday at Mattala airport. He said that two other airlines will also be operating direct flights to MRIA from next year reactivating the MRIA to international traffic. Jayakantha said that MRIA offers several concessions to airline operators and passengers which include discounted landing charges, waiver of embarkation tax which is USD 60 dollars.
“We have also requested Sri Lanka catering to open a restaurant to cater to departing passengers and this is expected to be set up in January 2023. Currently MRIA has two duty free airports and we also plan to increase this mid next year when passenger movements improve.”
He said that irrespective of politics behind the creation of MRIA they will also look at improving Cargo operations which were one of the prime objectives of opening an airport in the South. He said that though MRIA has not generated profits it also brought in indirect revenue through overflying charges to Sri Lanka.
In addition MRIA also rose up to be the second international airport in Sri Lanka as it accommodated three aircraft last week bound for Colombo which could not land due to bad weather. These flights were operated by SriLankan, Fitis Air and Gulf Air.
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