The Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) will be closed for all operations during the day for three months due to work relating to overlaying of the runway. The BIA will be closed from January 6, 2017 until April 6 for three months from 8.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. daily.
The BIA has only one runway. Over 950,000 aircraft operations have been carried out since its commissioning three decades ago.
The runway was designed and constructed in the mid-80’s to meet the then requirements.
During the renovation period, no flights will be operated. All airlines using the BIA have been informed to carry out flights from 4.30 p.m. to 8.00 a.m.
No major rehabilitation work had been carried out on the runway after the airport was commissioned.
Officials of the International Civil Aviation Organisation recommended an overlaying of the runway to improve runway surface condition for safe operations of aircraft.
In line with the overlaying of the existing runway, several airport sector development activities such as overlaying of parallel taxiways, connecting taxiways, design of new rapid exit taxiways (RETs) and by pass taxiways, installation of new airfield ground lighting (AGL) system and modification of existing apron will be carried out.
All these moves are being made to handle a further nine million passengers per annum aiming to cater to the ever increasing passenger volume in the region.
With the BIA development project being carried out in three stages, the passenger handling capacity of the BIA will be enhanced by further nine million passengers per annum and on completion, the total passenger handling capacity of the airport will be increased to 15 million passengers per annum.
