Most privileged Airport Mattala: CAA official

The Airlines that used to operate via Colombo to Mattala had been granted all nine air traffic rights since those airlines had refused to carry out their operations in Mattala Airport due to decline in passengers and bird strikes, it was revealed in the Srilankan Airlines Commission yesterday.

Director Air Transport and Economic Regulation of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Rehan Mario Wanniappa informed the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into irregularities at Srilankan Airlines, Srilankan Catering and Mihin Lanka that the Mattala Airport is the most liberal airport in the world that has all nine traffic rights.

Mattala had been granted all nine air traffic rights since those airlines had refused to carry out their operations in Mattala Airport due to decline in passengers and bird strikes

The nine rights are the right to fly over a foreign country without landing, the right to refuel or carry out maintenance in a foreign country without embarking or disembarking passengers or cargo, the right to fly from one’s own country to another country, the right to fly between two foreign counties on a flight originating or ending in one’s own country, the right to fly from a foreign country to another while stopping in one’s own country for non-technical reasons, the right to fly between two foreign countries, where the flights do not touch one’s own country, the right to fly inside a foreign country, continuing to one’s own country and the right to fly within a foreign country without continuing to one’s own country.

He also said that usually other airports only have first four or five rights with respective airlines but airlines which operate via Mattala had received all nine air traffic rights.