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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kmc madushan" data-source="post: 20442872" data-attributes="member: 341750">For Sale: The World's Emptiest International Airport<img src="https://www.lanka.com/wp-content/gallery/MIA/ria-2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />The Sri Lankan government announced at the end of June that it is looking for Expressions of Interest (EOI) from investors who would like to take over commercial operations at Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA), the country’s number two international airport.With just two daily flights — the second just being added in May — this international airport can be argued to be the world’s most underused, and has been a consistent financial drain on Sri Lanka’s Transport and Civil Aviation Ministry since it opened in March of 2013. To put it simply, the airport is not generating enough revenue to pay back the $190 million of loans that were provided by the Exim Bank of China to build it.Although submissions of EOIs are open until August 12, a potential investor for the airport has already surfaced. According to Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times newspaper, “arrangement are being worked out” for IZP, a Chinese informational technology company, to pick up the struggling airport to add to its growing portfolio of Silk Road investments.About Mattala International AirportFor many years, there was a very strong demand for Sri Lanka to add additional international aviation capacity. Air traffic through Colombo was getting too heavy, and the country either had to add an additional runway there or build or expand another airport elsewhere. At a cost of $209 million — most of which coming from China — Sri Lanka chose the later option, building Mattala International far out in southern Hambantota district, a 250 kilometer drive from Colombo.This airport started out as a key part of an ambitious plan by Sri Lanka’s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa to transform his extremely rural hometown region into Sri Lanka’s number two metropolis. In addition to the airport, there would be a $1.4 billion deep sea port, a large industrial and export processing zone, an exhibition center, a large cricket stadium, and a hotel and leisure area that would be connected together by some of the country’s best highways. The idea was that all of these large projects would rise up together and support each other. It was an all or nothing wager placed on creating an entirely new economy out in the middle of the jungle.While the broader plan for these developments were fully Sri Lankan, the money came from China. As Sri Lanka was to become a major part of China’s Maritime Silk Road, the country was more than please to offer a helping hand to the tune of $4.8 billion in soft loans.Like the other projects, Mattala International Airport was built and put into operation by all out fiat, rather than by market forces. SriLankan Airlines, the national carrier, was required to open a second hub there, and there were once flights to and from Bangkok, Beijing, Chennai, Jeddah, Malé, Riyadh, Shanghai, Sharjah, Tiruchirappalli, and Colombo. However, there was little demand or need for most of these flights. According to government data, in 2014, roughly 3,000 flights to the airport served just 21,000 passengers, a rate of just seven passengers per plane. Needless to say, most airlines and the airport itself recorded big loses..Wade Shepard |Contributor | forbes.com</blockquote>

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