Sri Lanka’s national airline on Saturday announced it plans to stop all flights to the country’s second international airport, built and named after former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, after he was defeated in last week’s elections.
Sri Lankan Airlines said operating flights via Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, in the former president’s home constituency of Hambantota District, was a huge drain on the already heavily debt-laden carrier.
The state-owned airline — under new management after Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena assumed office last week — has decided to cut back uneconomical flights, including operations via Rajapaksa International.
“This translates to an annual bottom-line improvement of approximately US$18 million,” the airline said in a statement.
The airline is weighed down with debt totaling nearly US$650 million. Rajapaksa opened his pet-project airport in March 2013, hoping it would become a new economic hub and act as a gateway to the island’s southeast.
However, the former government said in parliament that the airport earned 16,000 rupees (US$121) in May last year, recording a turnover less than that of a corner grocery store.
The only foreign airlines which operate services through the airport are UAE-based Fly Dubai and Rotana Jet Aviation.
Two budget carriers pulled out of the airport last year, saying it was uneconomical due to insufficient traffic, but Sri Lankan Airlines maintained flights for political reasons, according to official sources.
Local media dismissed the airport as a vanity project for Rajapaksa, who had also named a sea port, a performing arts center and a conventions center after himself.
Built with funding from China’s Export-Import Bank, the new US$206 million facility can accommodate the Airbus A380, the biggest airliner in service. Attempts to attract an aircraft maintenance facility there had drawn a blank.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS