Sri Lanka Reopens Its Oldest Airport After 54 Years

Sri Lanka’s first and oldest international airport, the Ratmalana airport, was reopened on Sunday after nearly five decades! According to aviation officials, a flight from the Maldives landed at Sri Lanka airport, the first flight it has seen in 54 years.

As per the reports, the 50-seater Maldivian flight will run three flights every week to Colombo and it will expand to five flights per week in the coming time..

On Sunday, Ratmalana greeted its first set of international travellers during a ceremony that was organised at the airport. Before this, the Maldivian airline used to operate flights till the Bandaranaike airport in Colombo, which is in the outskirts of the country.

According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL), there will be three weekly flights (Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays) that will run between the Velana International Airport in the Maldives and the Ratmalana Airport in Sri Lanka.

As per officials from the Maldivian Airlines, nearly 9000 residents of Maldive live in proximity to the Ratmalana airport, which will now make travelling convenient for them.

History of the airport

The Ratmalana airport was set up in 1938 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. There was a time when it used to be the main international airport in Sri Lanka. But, in the late 1960s, the Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayake was commissioned and Ratmalana was turned into a domestic airport. Soon, Bandaranaike airport became the main airport in Sri Lanka, serving international flights. But Ratmalana still remains Lanka’s oldest airport.

Now, the Civil Aviation of Sri Lanka has also said that they’ll remove the night landing restrictions on domestic flights that have been in place on domestic flights since the civil war days!