Govt. accepts futility of Mattala
It is reported that the land at Mattala Airport is to be handed over to a Singapore Company to establish an aviation training school. This was revealed in a statement made by the Minister of Civil Aviation Priyankara Jayaratna. The Minister has said the training school is to be established as a joint venture of Aerospace in Singapore and
CINET in Sri Lanka. The Minister has further said discussions between the two countries have been completed and Mattala Airport and Civil Aviation Office has been instructed to make land available for the project.
This indicates international flights do not land at Mattala. An international airport would never maintain an aviation training school on its premises. Such training is carried out in an airport in a region free of international flights. The aviation training school is to be established at Mattala as no international flights land there.
Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, constructed boasting that Sri Lanka would be made the hub of aviation in Asia and entangling all Sri Lankans further in the debt trap, has proved to be a wasteful and failed project. The move to hand over land for a training school could be to avoid criticism from the opposition at a future presidential election.
