No more flights to Mattala by SriLankan Airlines

SriLankan Airlines has cancelled flights to the Hambantota International Airport at Mattala since Thursday, officials said on Friday.

“This is because the official carrier is losing massive amounts of money by operating flights to this new airport built at a cost of Rs. 27 billion in an area of 2,000 hectares by the previous regime,” an Aviation Ministry official said.

Kapila Chandrasena, CEO SriLankan told the Business Times that the decision was taken in a bid to better manage the airline’s costs. He added that in the medium term they will prune routes which don’t make economic sense. “We will redeploy aircraft to destinations where we can recover costs.”

The move comes after anticipated changes at the national carrier following President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s defeat at the polls. His brother-in-law Nishantha Wickramasinghe who was airline chairman has already resigned.

The official said that Mattala is a white elephant and that few are using the airline from Mattala. He added that they haven’t taken a decision on Mihin Lanka, while industry sources say that Flydubai and Rotana Jet carriers that are using the Mattala Airport will also stop flights there when the national carrier stops flights. They added that this will eventually shut the airport down.

The official said that in such an eventuality, Mattala Airport will be converted into a flying school and used for capacity building in the aviation sector. SriLankan flies to Beijing, Shanghai, Chennai, Jeddah, Male and Colombo from Mattala.