Over 840,000 passenger arrivals were facilitated by the three international airports in Sri Lanka in January 2024, according to the Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) (Private) Limited (AASL).
Issuing a statement, the AASL said the passenger figures in January 2024 at Sri Lankan airports indicate a promising growth of tourist arrivals, as Sri Lankan airports had facilitated 846,173 total passenger arrivals.
The AASL said among the tourist arrivals 207,182 tourists had travelled through all the airports; Katunayake Airport (BIA), Jaffna International Airport (JIA), and the Mattala Airport (MRIA).
In January 2022, Sri Lanka initially reported 82,327 tourist arrivals which went up to 102,545 arrivals with an increase of 24.5 % for the same period in 2023. In January 2024, Sri Lanka recorded 208,253 tourist arrivals with a remarkable growth of 103% compared to the same period in 2023.
Meanwhile, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) facilitated 11,801 international tourist arrivals with 102 flight operations and total passenger movements of 23,739.
Further, the Jaffna International Airport (JIA) facilitated 3,413 international passenger movements and 271 domestic passenger movements in January 2024.
According to the current statistics, BIA facilitated 846,173 international passenger movements in January 2024 with an average of 27,295 passengers a day, the AASL said.
Eng. Athula Galketiya (Chairman of Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) (Private) Limited), remarked, “These numbers indicate that BIA is almost reaching the average daily passenger number handled, approximately 29,800, in the most successful year, handling 10.8 million passengers in 2018. Furthermore, BIA handled 9.9 million passengers in 2019, with an average daily passenger movement of approximately 27,280 passengers.”
Further In response to the growing number of passengers, the AASL said it is in the process of expanding and upgrading the infrastructural capacity at BIA as a short and medium-term solution. (NewsWire)
