Changes to SriLankan flight schedule, repair work on Bandaranaike

SriLankan Airlines has announced changes to its flight schedule as Bandaranaike International Airport will remain closed for a large part of the day as it will be undergoing repair work for the first three months of 2017.

Bandaranaike will be closed each day from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, from January 6 to April 7 as its runway is re-surfaced.

It will take four hours each day for the repair work, and four more hours for the surface of the runway to dry.

Bandaranaike has a single, 3,350-meter runway. Re-surface work which will start in January is the first major repair work which will be carried out on the runway since it was built in 1986.

SriLankan Airlines operates four flights between Male’ and Colombo each weekday; one in

the morning, one in the afternoon, one in evening, one at sundown, and one in the night.

Country Manager of SriLankan Airlines to Maldives, Sujeewa Rodrigo reported to “Sun” that the airlines planned to combine two flights.

“There will be a flight in the morning. UL 101 will land in Male’ at 8:15 am, and will depart for Colombo at 9:30 am. Then there’s the UL 115 which will arrive at 2:30 pm and the UL 116 which will depart for Colombo at 3:30 pm. We have decided to combine these two flights,” said Rodrigo.

“The morning flight to Male’ will remain parked at the airport until it’s time for the evening flight. It will take off when it’s time for the evening flight.”

Rodrigo said that with the change, three flights would be operating between Male’ and Colombo each weekday, instead of four.

Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) has also confirmed the change in schedule.

Managing Director of MACL, Adil Moosa confirmed to “Sun” on an earlier occasion that the company had been briefed regarding the changes by SriLankan Airlines.

“UL met with us. It’s morning flight will come here and then leave in the afternoon. That is, it will arrive at 8:30 am and leave at 2:30 pm. It will layover here for six to seven hours. It will not cause any strain to this airport,” said Adil.

He said that Bandaranaike being closed down would not result in any disruption to operations of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport.

“The flights during the time Colombo airport will be closed are direct flights. Emirates will be operating two flights. The two morning flights will land in INIA and depart straight for Dubai.

Only Emirate’s evening flight will to Colombo. By that time, Colombo airport will be back to operation,” said Adil.

Spokesperson for MEGA Maldives – which will be staring operations between Male’ and Colombo this November, Ameen Jawid Faisal said that the time during which Bandaranaike would be closed did not coincide with the time which MEGA would be operating its flights between the two destinations.