Sri Lanka’s main airport in the capital Colombo planning to stretch a peak in aircraft landings in the late night to reduce congestion, Deputy Minister of Tourism Ruwan Ranasinghe said.
Earlier this month the Airport and Aviation Services, which manages the Bandaranaike International Airport stopped visitors coming to the departure section between the hours of 2200 and 2400 to reduce congestion inside the terminal.
Airports have so-called hub peaks where aircraft converge within a short time. Hub peaks allow passengers, such as those arriving from India to transit onto other aircraft with a minimum waiting time.
“The arrivals scheduled within a short time,” Deputy Minister Ruwan Ranasinghe explained. “We have a large number of landings within four hours. We are stretching it to about six hours.”
The arrivals led to congestion at immigration was contributing to the delay.
“We have increased the number of immigration counters,” he said. “Recruitment are also going on.”
Sri Lanka was also encouraging more tourist charter flights to go to Mattala, he said.
Sri Lanka is expecting 3 million tourists this year with 1.5 million arriving up to mid August.
Outbound local travellers are also increasing as the effects of a currency crisis reduces and disposable income go up.
Sri Lanka is building a new terminal in Colombo with Japanese financing but its construction was halted after the country defaulted.
The existing terminal was originally designed for about 6 million a year but has handled 10.8 million passengers in 2018. After a collapse in passenger traffic from a Coronavirus pandemic and a currency crisis. (ECONOMYNEX)
