Renovation of BIA Runway & Rescheduling of Airlines

The BIA handles an average of 150 flights a day. BIA sources  said that  it will  renovate its outdated runway from January 6 to April 6 next year. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) officials said flights will mostly be allowed at night as construction work will go on from 8.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m.

The decisions about the rescheduling or curtailing the flights would be decided by individual airlines according to their route networks.

While some airlines have rescheduled flights from the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) during the first quarter of 2017, other airlines have taken measures to reduce the number of flights temporarily.

Qatar Airways said they had already rescheduled their flights and the revised flight details could be accessed via their web site http://www.qatarairways.com/global/en/homepage.page. FlyDubai Commercial Manager Gihan Silva said they had decided to curtail their weekly flights. “Currently, FlyDubai operates 28 flights a week via the BIA. Due to the closure of the BIA, we will be curtailing it to 19 a week while some of the flights will be operated at night,” he said. Emirates and AirAsia were not able to comment on the matter immediately due to ongoing discussions