COLOMBO – Sri Lanka relaunched a bid for investors on April 26 to revive its money-losing Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, following the collapse of a 30-year lease with an Indo-Russian joint venture.
Constructed with Chinese loans near a southern wildlife sanctuary, the facility, named after ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, has sat largely idle since 2013, unable to cover basics like electricity bills and bleeding state funds. Officials touted its “untapped potential” for tourism and strategic ventures in a call for expressions of interest.
A 2024 plan to hand operations to India’s Shaurya Aeronautics and Russia’s Airports of Regions Management Company fizzled out. The airport, on a bird migration path, has seen planes grounded by collisions, prompting army deployments to chase off deer, buffalo, and elephants from the runway.
It serves mainly as a weather backup to Colombo’s main hub, a quick half-hour hop away with sporadic cargo and charter flights generating scant revenue, per reports. In 2017, debt woes led Sri Lanka to cede nearby Hambantota port to China’s Merchants Port Holdings on a 99-year lease, stoking “debt trap” fears amid the 2022 default on $46 billion in foreign obligations.
Post-IMF bailout, privatization pushes for loss-makers like Mattala have stalled, as Colombo grapples with fallout from ill-fated Chinese-backed projects.