BIA expansion long-felt need

Continuing our focus on Aviation in Asia, we will take a look at the aviation scene concerning Sri Lanka in this week's column. Things are looking up for Colombo (Bandaranaike International Airport) with several more airlines lining up to start services to Colombo in the next few months.

The world's oldest airline KLM is scheduled to start Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner services to Colombo from its Amsterdam Schiphol hub from October this year. KLM's arrival in Sri Lanka after a lapse of around 20 years is a cause for celebration, because it will bolster connectivity from Europe. This will be especially helpful when SriLankan's flights to Frankfurt and Paris terminate by November this year. Although the twice-weekly service has been described as being "seasonal" for the moment, KLM is likely to operate the flights year-round if there is enough demand. Several package tour operators have already signed up with KLM to reserve capacity on its flights to Colombo.

Another European airline looking forward to resuming flights to Sri Lanka from November onwards is the leisure airline Thomson Airways, now being rebranded TUI after its parent group. TUI will fly its latest Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners to Colombo from London Gatwick weekly (SriLankan operates to London Heathrow), Stockholm Arlanda and Helsinki (biweekly). This will boost tourism from the Scandinavian market. Tourists from these countries earlier had to change planes in Dubai, London or Abu Dhabi to get here, but direct flights will make the journey more appealing and less of a hassle. Being essentially a charter operation, the airline is unlikely to carry ethnic traffic (passengers of Sri Lankan/Maldivian origin), but the bigger need is to carry tourist traffic. Thus, it fits the country's requirements perfectly.

Connectivity

Sri Lanka will get better connectivity to Europe and Ukraine when the Ukraine International Airlines launches direct Boeing 767-300 flights in Kiev (Boryspil airport) in Ukraine from November 1 this year.

Biman Bangladesh is another airline considering new flights to Sri Lanka to complement Mihin Lanka's existing Colombo-Dhaka return flights. According to sources at the Civil Aviation and Tourism Ministry of Bangladesh and Biman, the national flag carrier has decided to start operations on the Dhaka-Colombo-Dhaka and Dhaka-Male-Dhaka routes during the upcoming winter season. Austrian Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Himalaya Airlines (Kathmandu-Colombo-Kathmandu) and Neos are among the other airlines operating seasonally to Colombo. Several private Indian carriers are also awaiting the green light from the Indian Government to start operations to Colombo.

Airlines already serving Sri Lanka are also increasing their flight frequencies to the country. Emirates, for example, will add a fifth daily flight from Dubai to Colombo using Boeing 777 equipment from August 1. With a large number of travellers to Sri Lanka transiting through the Middle East, this will be a major boost for tourism here. Singapore Airlines too has added a second flight to Colombo on a number of days.

More airlines are waiting in the wings to enter Sri Lankan Airspace but some of the bilateral air services or lack thereof could be hindering their moves. Sri Lanka must work out bilateral air services agreements with more countries in order to boost connectivity until the much-talked-about Open Skies policy is effectively implemented. Such a policy is already in effect for the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport for which the Government is seeking more investments and airline operations. We need more inbound airline seats for Colombo if the Government is to realize the target of 2.5 million tourists per year in the short term.

It is also heartening to see that the authorities have turned their attention to renovating the BIA runway after a lapse of 30 years. In the absence of a second runway, this will temporarily hinder aircraft movements during daytime, for a few months from January next year, but once the repair is completed more airlines will be tempted to come in. This is part of a complete upgrading project at the BIA which will see its passenger handling capacity increase drastically to 15 million passengers a year.

A380

The BIA, built to handle just six million passengers a year is already strained in terms of passenger capacity (last year it handled 8.5 million passengers) and severely congested during certain times of the day, so this upgrade too is long overdue.

A new split-level passenger terminal building, which separates arrivals and departures vertically, a new pier with eight boarding gates, and 14 passenger boarding bridges, with a dedicated gate comprising two passenger boarding bridges for the new Airbus A380, will be included in the proposed new complex. There would also be a remote apron and an additional nine parking stands to ease air traffic movement. There will be bigger car parks for the benefit of passengers and their families. Extra air navigation and physical safety enhancements are also planned.

Once the entire project implemented with Japanese assistance is completed by around 2020, the Colombo airport will rival some of the best airports in the region. It will be able to handle the Airbus A380 via air bridge (not Neoplan buses - Colombo can already handle the A380, which has made three emergency landings at the airport) and many more wide-bodied aircraft such as the Airbus 330/350 simultaneously.

Travel Boom

This will hopefully attract more airlines to Colombo, giving the passengers a wider choice. There is also a need for regular scheduled domestic flights using bigger (around 100 passengers) aircraft such as the new Bombardier CS 100 - the countrywide upgrading of domestic airports now under way could point in this direction. If tourism takes off in a big way, the present seaplane and helicopter-based domestic operations will not suffice.

No airport can succeed without a superb network of ground transport, which is sorely lacking at BIA at present, with taxi touts harassing local and foreign passengers for 'hires' as soon as they emerge from the arrivals terminal. The locals usually brush them off, but it creates a bad impression among foreign visitors, just 10 minutes into their sojourn in Sri Lanka. Fortunately, the BIA development plan calls for speedier access to the Katunayake Expressway and a rail link to Colombo, as found in many other airports around the world. There should also be a proper, highly regulated taxi stand free of touts, in addition to a convenient bus stand.

The Asia Pacific region will be the centre of growth in travel for the next 40-50 years - as we mentioned in this column last week, both Boeing and Airbus anticipate thousands of new midrange aircraft orders from the region to fuel that intra-Asian and Asia inbound travel boom. Sri Lanka is geographically ideally located to take advantage of this boom and become a mini aviation hub next to Singapore and Dubai. The BIA renovation and additional flights to Colombo by a host of global airlines will help meet this goal.