it will be the back up Airport for CMB in an emergency situation. No need to go to Chennai.

You can't start an MRO operation just like that.

For that matter, Plan B, shift UL MRO to HRI, but then again, I am sure not all staff and engineers will want to relocate so far from their comfort zone !

Mattala open 24/7

What's the point keeping the Mattala airport open 24/7? Flydubai is the only airline that currently operates out of Mattala but flydubai is cancelling all the flights to Mattala from 31/3/2015. Best move is Sri Lanka government should move the Sri Lanka Airforce bases to Mattala Airport from Colombo Bandaranaike and Ratmalana. So Bandaranike and Ratmalana will get more space for passenger/cargo flight operations. Ratmalana Airport also should be thinking about attracting turpo prob operators from the local region like India, Maldives..

It seems to be Aviation authorities are planning the improve the hangar facilities at Ratmalana airport, according to this source :

I posted this in the other thread as well but this is well worth reading:

Infrastructure
Aerotropolitan ambitions

China’s frenzied building of airports includes work on city-sized projects
Mar 14th 2015 | ZHENGZHOU | From the print edition
Timekeeper

POLITICIANS in London who have been debating for years over whether to approve the building of a third runway at Heathrow Airport might find a visit to Zhengzhou—an inland provincial capital little known outside China—an eye-opening experience. Some 20,000 workers are labouring around the clock to build a second terminal and runway for the city’s airport. They are due to begin test operations by December, just three years after ground was broken. By 2030, officials expect, the two terminals and, by then, five runways will handle 70m passengers yearly—about the same as Heathrow now—and 5m tonnes of cargo, more than three times as much as Heathrow last year.

But the ambitions of Zhengzhou airport (pictured) are far bigger than these numbers suggest. It aspires to be the centre of an “aerotropolis”, a city nearly seven times the size of Manhattan with the airport not a noisy intrusion on its edge but built into its very heart. Its perimeter will encompass logistics facilities, R&D centres, exhibition halls and factories that will link central China to the rest of the global economy. It will include homes and amenities for 2.6m people by 2025, about half as many as live in Zhengzhou’s main urban area today. Heathrow struggles to expand because of Londoners’ qualms, but China’s urban planners are not bothered by grumbling; big building projects rarely involve much consulting of the public.

The idea of airport-centred cities is not a Chinese one. John Kasarda of the University of North Carolina helped to promote it in a book he co-wrote, “Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next”, which was published in 2011. He is an adviser to Zhengzhou Airport Economic Zone (ZAEZ), as the aerotropolis is called. China, however, is well-placed to turn Mr Kasarda’s etymological mishmash into reality. The Chinese see airports as “competitive assets”, he says, not “nuisances and environmental threats”—although many cities, inspired by another American-invented term, insist they want to turn themselves into green “eco-cities”. New urban centres are being built on greenfield sites across the country. Some are being developed in such disregard of demand that they are becoming eerily empty “ghost towns”. But they are giving planners ample opportunity to build airports alongside new cities, instead of as afterthoughts.

Construction of airports is proceeding at a blistering pace. The government’s plan for 2011-15 called for 82 new airports to be built during this period. In the event, more than 100 have sprung up. Officials are fond of what they call “airport economics”, by which they mean the use of airport-building to boost local economies.

Only in a handful of cases do overseers of these projects explicitly say that they want to build aerotropolises. One example is in the southern outskirts of Beijing, centred on a village called Nangezhuang, where a groundbreaking ceremony was held on December 26th. Little activity is visible: a few pieces of construction equipment sat idle one recent afternoon at the edge of a sorghum field as herders walked their sheep along a nearby dirt road. But by 2019 the area is due to be turned into one of the world’s largest airports, at a cost of 80 billion yuan ($13 billion). As much as 80 billion yuan more will reportedly be spent turning the surrounding area into an economic and industrial hub.

Some wonder whether all this is necessary. Wang Tao of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy, a think-tank in Beijing, calls the airport-construction frenzy “misguided”. He believes many of the cities building big airports do not need them, thanks to a rapid expansion of the country’s high-speed rail network in recent years (see map). Local officials, Mr Wang says, are after political prestige and a quick boost to local GDP; they are happy to leave their successors to grapple with the debts. Many new airports operate at a loss. Mr Kasarda, however, defends the Zhengzhou project. It is misguided, he says, to assess an airport’s value solely by its operational profitability; its role as an economic driver also needs to be taken into account. “We are putting the aerotropolis theory into practice,” says Zhang Yanming, ZAEZ’s Communist Party chief.


Zhengzhou has a long history as a trading and transport hub, well-connected to China’s largest population centres. It also has an abundant supply of labour (it is the capital of Henan province, one of China’s most populous, with more than 100m people). The ZAEZ allows duty-free import and re-export of goods and components. Mr Zhang says this has attracted more than a dozen makers of mobile phones, including Foxconn, a Taiwanese-owned firm best known for producing Apple iPhones. The Foxconn factory employs 200,000 people year-round, and 300,000 at times of peak production. Three-quarters of the iPhones made globally in the past three years came from ZAEZ, Mr Zhang says. Such small, high value-added, products benefit greatly from ready access to airports.

Beijing’s aerotropolis also has built-in advantages, not least strong support from the central government. Mr Kasarda acknowledges that his concept cannot work everywhere, especially in many of China’s smaller cities. But he remains excited by the many suitable candidates in a country that is willing—and more able than most— to give it a try. “They can really design not just an airport, but an aerotropolis from scratch,” he enthuses. It remains to be seen how enthusiastic residents will be about the jets roaring over them.

From the print edition: China

Reuters reports that EK said it would look at placing an order for up to 200 A380neo jets to replace its current fleet and drive further expansion. Are they going to put A380 on Every route? Sri Lanka has to upgrade Colombo Airport to handle A380s. I believe currently airbridges and runway at Colombo is not very supportive to handle A380s on the daily basis. Any news when Colombo Airport Phase II project starts?

The Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo stands in Rank 5 in the top-10 Best Airports in C Asia / India 2015.

We can make it to the top of the rankings easily if the Management of the Airport and polikkos takes proper decisions.

Hmm well I am surprised with this naming and Central Asia tag. Whilst it is not a bad airport the new IGI airport DEL and the BOM airports are miles ahead. I guess what gives DEL and BOM a low scores may be the attitude of officials and unruly passengers who go through.

I have commented and remarked on this a lot. The current Medium haul EK A380s have 16F/76J and 427 Y seats. Filling 92 Premium seats is not easy. EK is due to get high density A380s. But I guess the 4X daily frequnecy would fit better than reducing flight to fill an A380. Plus is CMB A380 ready?

They still haven't started the constructions of the new terminal have they? I don't think CMB is prepared to handle a scheduled A380 service yet. The runway is quite old and the taxi ways are not sufficient to handle the wing span of such a big aircraft so debris can easily get sucked into the engines. And airport has to handle 500+ passengers and about 1000 baggages at once. So yeah! the new terminal is a MUST in order to handle an A380.

Sri Lankan government annuls Bandaranaike International Airport construction contrac

Sri Lankan government annuls Bandaranaike International Airport construction contract



Mar 19, Colombo: The Sri Lankan government Thursday said it is cancelling the contract awarded to make improvements to the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) for lack of transparency.

At the weekly cabinet briefing held today (19) the Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Rajitha Senaratne said the Government has cancelled the contract that has already been awarded relating to the BIA runway, overlay and related works.

He said the award of this contract has been made without following a competitive tender procedure and without transparency.

The Cabinet of Ministers has approved a proposal made by the Minister of Ports, Naval and Aviation Arjuna Ranatunga to annul the contract that has already been awarded.

Sri Lanka in 2013 signed a Rs. 42.5 billion loan agreement with Japan to finance the expansion of the BIA and future developments.

Well it isn't beinf cancelled permanently. Just till they can call for tenders again. Sumal Perera was making a whole heap more than he should have been making.

Lets hope they will re-evaluate & award the contract to a suitable contractor. BIA desperately needs the upgrade.

Im not sure of this affects the contract to construct the new terminal. If not, I wont be surprised if this is put on hold & re-evaluated as well. Who knows !!!

Will this delay the contruction work for second terminal which supposed to start in Mid 2015?

Mattala Airport website is out of order. Take a look - http://www.mria.lk/

Sri Lanka to call fresh bids for runway repair
Mar 20, 2015 13:45 PM GMT+0530 | 0 Comment(s)

COLOMBO (EconomyNext) - Sri Lanka will invite fresh bids to upgrade the runway at its main airport after cancelling a deal given by the former regime to a local firm that was 25 percent higher than government estimates.

Ports and Aviation Minister Arjuna Ranatunga has recommended that bids be obtained from "reputed international construction contractors" and request for proposals to be sent to three firms directly.

They are Al Naboodah Construction Group LLC Dubai, UAE, Colas Ltd. of Birmingham, UK and China Harbour Engineering Company, according to a proposal accepted this week by the Cabinet of Ministers.

Funding for the project to repair the runway at the island's international airport at Katunayake will have to be obtained by the contractor as a soft loan, according to the aviation ministry proposal.

The government has cancelled an 85.8 million US dollar contract awarded by the former Rajapaksa regime to local construction firm Access Engineering.

This was because no competitive tender procedure had been followed in the award of the contract and Access Engineering lacked experience for the runway work, Ports and Aviation Minister Ranatunga told the Cabinet of ministers.

No major repair work has been done on the runway after it was opened to air traffic in 1986.

The International Civil Aviation Organization has recommended in their audit observation of Sri Lankan airports that an overlaying of the runway to improve surface condition has to be done.

This was to ensure "the safe operation of aircraft as some cracks have appeared on the runway surface," according to the proposal.

Access Engineering's original proposal in August 2014 was 103.6 million US dollars but this was negotiated down to 85.8 million dollars, which still "was 25 percent over the engineer's estimate," it said.

That original bid was subject to renegotiation with Access Engineering to reduce the final bid price.

But the then-Cabinet of ministers was told the negotiations were not successful and contract awarded o Access at 85.8 million dollars,

Ranatunga has said Access Engineering's "quoted price is also comparatively high" as revealed by inquiries from Al Naboodah Construction Group LLC of Dubai, UAE and Colas Ltd. Birmingham, UK which done similar overlay work on runways in Dubai International Airport and London Gatwick International Airport.