Mattala Airport: A gateway to the future?

Heard that there are 20 people employed there just to chase away the wandering Peacocks to the air field.
But about wandering Elephants, I do not know !

Kithsiri wrote:Heard that there are 20 people employed there just to chase away the wandering Peacocks to the air field.
But about wandering Elephants, I do not know !

Read this also.
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/130324/news/jumbos-not-bothered-about-mattala-38246.html

I never against a second Airport.

But here are the distances to Mattala from all our major cities .

Mattala to Colombo =260Km via express way
Mattala to Colombo =210Km Via Ratnapura
Mattala to Kandy = 225Km via Haputale
Mattala to Kurunegala = 230Km via Ratnapura
Mattala to Batticaloa = 240Km
Mattala to Trinco = 328Km via chenkaladi
Mattala to Vavuniya = 375Km via Badulla Mahiyanganaya
Mattala to Jaffna =520 Km via Badulla, Dambulla.
Mattala to Galle = 170Km via tangalle

At least 70% population will have to suffer because of this location. However slowly you will adopt to this new location. Not because you like it but you have no other option.

A Port city does not need an Airport. It's a crazy idea that this government is forcing us to believe.

We do not need one airport for maintenance, one airport for cargo, one airport for budget airlines. etc etc.

We just needed a second airport for all above things + most importantly a good location for the people in this country. Hambantota probably one of the worse places to build an airport. You cannot really promote this airport as a strategic location for tourism.

Luckily our president is not from Jaffna.

Good effort & this will get busier in years to come but why this location ...............................

chamith wrote:
Why did mahinda happen to born in Hambanthota, if he was born is galle, or kandy, we are talking about this topic differently

What can we do now is to form two companies of BIA and MIRA and allow them to operate without gov and treasury intervention. This will bring all the competition and they can upgrade their performance and will not waste our money..

After all they wasting money that can be used to upgrade the education and health of the tax payers..

Cricket stadium yesterday.
http://www.islandcricket.lk/afp/photos/srilankacricket/24571/players-hit-the-ground-to-avoid-wasps
http://www.islandcricket.lk/afp/photos/srilankacricket/24587/darkness-and-empty-stands-in-hambantota

A different point of View.


We all are wrong. We are same like the people who buy shares at 5 rupees to sell it at 50/- next day.

Mattala is the best location for the airport. To understand this we have to look long term.
Mattala has lot of unoccupied land area that can be used for any future needs. Highway from Colombo is coming towards it.

To understand the term “Long term” I may go to new Dubai airport.
They are building a new airport for Dubai inside the dessert, away from the current town area. I think they started it 5 years ago and in 2007 I saw how 100s of designers plan each and every inch of it in papers.
The project cost is 34,000 million US Dollars. ( he he Mattala 210 kaellak )
They have designed it for 20Y future and announced it will be in fully functional in 2027 !.
I think airports are built not as single projects considering a simple return period. They are parts of bigger thinking.

DXB is doing an investment of $ 34,000 million to get return starting from 2027. They have to import 99.9 % manpower, 100% trees, desalinate the ocean water, fuel generated electricity etc. ( Dubai has no oil wells) .
We have everything except oil and talking about the return we have to get from 210 $ investment.

Forget about passenger handling, Mattala is a best place for cargo business. At the moment all major handlers spending billions in Dubai to run their hubs at very high costs with 100% imported manpower.

We need a good road network to link the airport and other infrastructure like fast access to hospitals, Schools, supermarkets, lodging, recreation etc.

They have already cleared 20-30 km of land towards Matara for the highway. It should go via Angunakolapelessa, Weeraketiya, Beliaththa and connect to CMB-MTR highway at Paalatuwa - Godagama.
(Incidentally, Paalatuwa – Motherland, Weeraketiya-Beliatta – Fatherland !)

Matara - Mattala distance will be around 45 mins. With the nearing completion Katunayala highway connected to Outer Circular Colombo , distance between two International Airports will be 2 hrs and 30 minutes.

Okay , what is you main point here?

If it is "Forget about passenger handling, Mattala is a best place for cargo business." I might buy your argumen provided infratucture is developed without taxing the public further.


I am/was referring to location based on passenger handling.

Else , comparing with Dubai is not appropriate . We are in a different league and need than Dubai on social priorities, cash situation, instrastructure development at this stage.

Chinwi wrote:A different point of View.


We all are wrong. We are same like the people who buy shares at 5 rupees to sell it at 50/- next day.

Mattala is the best location for the airport. To understand this we have to look long term.
Mattala has lot of unoccupied land area that can be used for any future needs. Highway from Colombo is coming towards it.

To understand the term “Long term” I may go to new Dubai airport.
They are building a new airport for Dubai inside the dessert, away from the current town area. I think they started it 5 years ago and in 2007 I saw how 100s of designers plan each and every inch of it in papers.
The project cost is 34,000 million US Dollars. ( he he Mattala 210 kaellak )
They have designed it for 20Y future and announced it will be in fully functional in 2027 !.
I think airports are built not as single projects considering a simple return period. They are parts of bigger thinking.

DXB is doing an investment of $ 34,000 million to get return starting from 2027. They have to import 99.9 % manpower, 100% trees, desalinate the ocean water, fuel generated electricity etc. ( Dubai has no oil wells) .
We have everything except oil and talking about the return we have to get from 210 $ investment.

Forget about passenger handling, Mattala is a best place for cargo business. At the moment all major handlers spending billions in Dubai to run their hubs at very high costs with 100% imported manpower.

We need a good road network to link the airport and other infrastructure like fast access to hospitals, Schools, supermarkets, lodging, recreation etc.

They have already cleared 20-30 km of land towards Matara for the highway. It should go via Angunakolapelessa, Weeraketiya, Beliaththa and connect to CMB-MTR highway at Paalatuwa - Godagama.
(Incidentally, Paalatuwa – Motherland, Weeraketiya-Beliatta – Fatherland !)

Matara - Mattala distance will be around 45 mins. With the nearing completion Katunayala highway connected to Outer Circular Colombo , distance between two International Airports will be 2 hrs and 30 minutes.

I am not saying it is not good for passenger handling.
I was talking about the business . Normally cargo handling brings lot of money to a airport than passengers. A duty free Cargo village is the best way to make a boom in Mattala.

Dubai new airport I mentioned ( Jabel Ali) is already open for cargo. Actually we are late by 2-3 years. They will develop it during next 10-15 years for passenger handling. Our plus-point is low cost at Mattala for international cargo handlers.

For me the location of new airport is OK for passengers too. - With the development of the road network I mentioned.
I have seen lot of people traveling to far away airports to save few thousands of ticket money.
I think even Air Arabia flight coming from Sharjah to Mattala bring lot of Dubai residents traveled by road to Sharjah.
At the moment FlyDubai, operating from DXB is giving stiff competition to them.
When Rak Air was there people spend over 2-3 hours to reach Ras Al Khaima to get cheaper flights .

In addition, 26% of our foreign job seeking passengers are from South, Central and Eastern provinces they say.

Chinwi,

You are looking at mattla from a different angle.

When talking about passengers , we need to look at the kinds. The relatively closer middle east and far east worker crowd, tourists, immigrant workers in western coutries like Australia, USA, Europe.

At this stage Mattala might be okay for certain fraction of the above passengers to gain benefit from lower costs of shorter distance flights. To other who might be traveling more than 1 ocean and spend larger amounts for Air tickets with shorter visit times cost benefit will be different. For multi flight expensive air tickets, landing at BIA or Mattala will not make a significant difference in proportionate costs. ( ie RS 42000 ticket becoming Rs 31000 vs Rs 170000 ticket becoming Rs 160000). To some quickest/easier access to your hometown or for a tourist access to a major city with better infrastructure/facilities is a need at the first time landing. for ex: , if your hometown is in Nuwara Eliya or Trinco, landing at Mattala than BIA will be a hassle at this stage. Now if the infrastructure/transportation was like in Dubai or singapore then we can talk different. We don't even have a efficient/cheap domestic flight/train system yet..


Sri Lanka has so many other priorities to look at before we compare with Singapore , Dubai .
Btw I was reading on how Sheik Zayed developed UAE. I think he was remarkable visionary who really cared for his people and had respect for other cultures. His first priorities were to build schools, housing, hospitals, cities and roads.

There is no harm running BIA and Mattala on identified needs/potentials based on cost/benefit, transportation facilities etc. But promoting mattala for all passenger needs will be crazy if they are thinking so at this time.
I only hope , there won't be political games played to isolate BIA to promote Mattala

As we go along we will need to start developing infrastucture with atleast 1 more airport above the middle part of the country , better bus/train services , access to medical care etc in other parts ofthe country.


Right now it is clear lot of attention is given to hambanthota area ( including hosting games) . We need to moderate look at different angles of this other than justifying every action of the politicos.
Again I am not againt a 2nd Airport which is a must. But if making Mattala THE airport is not something I can agree on
if there is any ideas behind it.

Chinwi wrote:I am not saying it is not good for passenger handling.
I was talking about the business . Normally cargo handling brings lot of money to a airport than passengers. A duty free Cargo village is the best way to make a boom in Mattala.

Dubai new airport I mentioned ( Jabel Ali) is already open for cargo. Actually we are late by 2-3 years. They will develop it during next 10-15 years for passenger handling. Our plus-point is low cost at Mattala for international cargo handlers.

For me the location of new airport is OK for passengers too. - With the development of the road network I mentioned.
I have seen lot of people traveling to far away airports to save few thousands of ticket money.
I think even Air Arabia flight coming from Sharjah to Mattala bring lot of Dubai residents traveled by road to Sharjah.
At the moment FlyDubai, operating from DXB is giving stiff competition to them.
When Rak Air was there people spend over 2-3 hours to reach Ras Al Khaima to get cheaper flights .

In addition, 26% of our foreign job seeking passengers are from South, Central and Eastern provinces they say.

Now the airport has built in Mattala. Long running arguments on the location of the airport is not very much useful now. I do not thing government is going to build another airport in Sri Lanka in near future. So what is the point of long running discussion on location for an airport ?
Now we need to focus on things which are useful to promote this airport. Location wise some say this is suitable and some say this is less suitable. We all know one big reason for this location is it is president's area. There is no argument on that. And we can not blame him for developing his own area.
On the other hand these are long term projects. So I do not think the location wise this would be a big issue when the things get adjusted.

If you do not like to read long conversations /"arguments" ( which you also get into with lot of people ) simple do not read them. These are educated conversations we are having with some people in this thread and are not arguments in my opinion . There are positives and negatives discussed which is what this forum should be as a social contribution.

Also note there will be people here who does not blindly agree or promote everything Govn does. We will discuss, support the good but does not have agree on the bad.

I am/will be be contacting authorities through my sources when a opportunity arises to give them opinion about the postive that can come from Mattala and also the negatives if they are planning this as a replacement for BIA.

if you do not think Govn, is going to build another Airport it is okay, But some one us will try to make sense for the future. We are not talking about building one in next 2 years.

Whitebull wrote:Now the airport has built in Mattala. Long running arguments on the location of the airport is not very much useful now. I do not thing government is going to build another airport in Sri Lanka in near future. So what is the point of long running discussion on location for an airport ?
Now we need to focus on things which are useful to promote this airport. Location wise some say this is suitable and some say this is less suitable. We all know one big reason for this location is it is president's area. There is no argument on that. And we can not blame him for developing his own area.
On the other hand these are long term projects. So I do not think the location wise this would be a big issue when the things get adjusted.

slstock wrote:If you do not like to read long conversations /"arguments" ( which you also get into with lot of people ) simple do not read them. These are educated conversations we are having with some people in this thread and are not arguments in my opinion . There are positives and negatives discussed which is what this forum should be as a social contribution.

Also note there will be people here who does not blindly agree or promote everything Govn does. We will discuss, support the good but does not have agree on the bad.

I am/will be be contacting authorities through my sources when a opportunity arises to give them opinion about the postive that can come from Mattala and also the negatives if they are planning this as a replacement for BIA.

if you do not think Govn, is going to build another Airport it is okay, But some one us will try to make sense for the future. We are not talking about building one in next 2 years.

Whitebull wrote:Now the airport has built in Mattala. Long running arguments on the location of the airport is not very much useful now. I do not thing government is going to build another airport in Sri Lanka in near future. So what is the point of long running discussion on location for an airport ?
Now we need to focus on things which are useful to promote this airport. Location wise some say this is suitable and some say this is less suitable. We all know one big reason for this location is it is president's area. There is no argument on that. And we can not blame him for developing his own area.
On the other hand these are long term projects. So I do not think the location wise this would be a big issue when the things get adjusted.

You still can't forget yesterday although you talk big things about broadmind and long term friendships ? I have expressed my opinion using my freedom of expression without violating forum rules. If you do not like it just ignore it without acting like a Guru for all of us.

Whitebull wrote:

slstock wrote:If you do not like to read long conversations /"arguments" ( which you also get into with lot of people ) simple do not read them. These are educated conversations we are having with some people in this thread and are not arguments in my opinion . There are positives and negatives discussed which is what this forum should be as a social contribution.

Also note there will be people here who does not blindly agree or promote everything Govn does. We will discuss, support the good but does not have agree on the bad.

I am/will be be contacting authorities through my sources when a opportunity arises to give them opinion about the postive that can come from Mattala and also the negatives if they are planning this as a replacement for BIA.

if you do not think Govn, is going to build another Airport it is okay, But some one us will try to make sense for the future. We are not talking about building one in next 2 years.

Whitebull wrote:Now the airport has built in Mattala. Long running arguments on the location of the airport is not very much useful now. I do not thing government is going to build another airport in Sri Lanka in near future. So what is the point of long running discussion on location for an airport ?
Now we need to focus on things which are useful to promote this airport. Location wise some say this is suitable and some say this is less suitable. We all know one big reason for this location is it is president's area. There is no argument on that. And we can not blame him for developing his own area.
On the other hand these are long term projects. So I do not think the location wise this would be a big issue when the things get adjusted.

You still can't forget yesterday although you talk big things about broadmind and long term friendships ? I have expressed my opinion using my freedom of expression without violating forum rules. If you do not like it just ignore it without acting like a Guru for all of us.

@Slstock
Do you need this comment?
Polite reminder
You are wasting the time with a Patriotic mania's.

Whitebull ,

I too had enough of you . Knowing you and friendship is 2 different things.

Let me patiently remind you some things you might not understand..


1) have been watching you for years and been very patient with you.
2) when certain moderators and members reported/ questioned about your intensions in this forum,
I covered your back so you are still here . you may not know
3) tolerated you for getting into arguments on political bias and dragging topics out of focus
4) your contribution to equity topics or news is very less .recently.
5) I saw you challenging Smallville ( Admin) also when he tried to talk some order
http://forum.srilankaequity.com/t26696p25-katunayake-expressway-to-open-in-august#156928
6) you had controversy in this forum before and left it once


I am a simple man and try to be resoable. You seems to have forgotten who I am in this forum


request :

Start talking more about equity related topics. If you like to contribute to a topic related to politics , talk about positives and negatives without always been one sided so it adds value on a social level. By now it is clear to everyone in the forum of your siding so we do not need to hear it again and again . I tried to say in a polite way spending too much time yesterday . You seem you don;t want to get it .

Fair warning : It will be in your best interest to show courtesy to my request. This is my last "request" before I take action.

Whitebull wrote:

slstock wrote:If you do not like to read long conversations /"arguments" ( which you also get into with lot of people ) simple do not read them. These are educated conversations we are having with some people in this thread and are not arguments in my opinion . There are positives and negatives discussed which is what this forum should be as a social contribution.

Also note there will be people here who does not blindly agree or promote everything Govn does. We will discuss, support the good but does not have agree on the bad.

I am/will be be contacting authorities through my sources when a opportunity arises to give them opinion about the postive that can come from Mattala and also the negatives if they are planning this as a replacement for BIA.

if you do not think Govn, is going to build another Airport it is okay, But some one us will try to make sense for the future. We are not talking about building one in next 2 years.

Whitebull wrote:Now the airport has built in Mattala. Long running arguments on the location of the airport is not very much useful now. I do not thing government is going to build another airport in Sri Lanka in near future. So what is the point of long running discussion on location for an airport ?
Now we need to focus on things which are useful to promote this airport. Location wise some say this is suitable and some say this is less suitable. We all know one big reason for this location is it is president's area. There is no argument on that. And we can not blame him for developing his own area.
On the other hand these are long term projects. So I do not think the location wise this would be a big issue when the things get adjusted.

You still can't forget yesterday although you talk big things about broadmind and long term friendships ? I have expressed my opinion using my freedom of expression without violating forum rules. If you do not like it just ignore it without acting like a Guru for all of us.

At last one of the Admin publically agreed with my comment of his new ID after 10 months.
Thanks a lot.

Redbull now be fair on ID matter.

There is no way to check who comes with a new ID unless they conatcts us or , we guess who they are by our ingenuity.
Even the Admins. So no one can publicly admit.

My comment made was for corrective action only ( hopefully) and not to segregate person mentioned.

Redbulls wrote:At last one of the Admin publically agreed with my comment of his new ID after 10 months.
Thanks a lot.

slstock wrote:Redbull now be fair on ID matter.

There is no way to check who comes with a new ID unless they conatcts us or , we guess who they are by our ingenuity.
Even the Admins. So no one can publicly admit.

My comment made was for corrective action only ( hopefully) and not to segregate person mentioned.

Redbulls wrote:At last one of the Admin publically agreed with my comment of his new ID after 10 months.
Thanks a lot.

I do agree with you. For me most of my guesses are always fair.(If someone follow my comments in the past)

slstock wrote:Whitebull ,

I too had enough of you . Knowing you and friendship is 2 different things.

Let me patiently remind you some things you might not understand..


1) have been watching you for years and been very patient with you.
2) when certain moderators and members reported/ questioned about your intensions in this forum,
I covered your back so you are still here . you may not know
3) tolerated you for getting into arguments on political bias and dragging topics out of focus
4) your contribution to equity topics or news is very less .recently.
5) I saw you challenging Smallville ( Admin) also when he tried to talk some order
http://forum.srilankaequity.com/t26696p25-katunayake-expressway-to-open-in-august#156928
6) you had controversy in this forum before and left it once


I am a simple man and try to be resoable. You seems to have forgotten who I am in this forum


request :

Start talking more about equity related topics. If you like to contribute to a topic related to politics , talk about positives and negatives without always been one sided so it adds value on a social level. By now it is clear to everyone in the forum of your siding so we do not need to hear it again and again . I tried to say in a polite way spending too much time yesterday . You seem you don;t want to get it .

Fair warning : It will be in your best interest to show courtesy to my request. This is my last "request" before I take action.

Whitebull wrote:

slstock wrote:If you do not like to read long conversations /"arguments" ( which you also get into with lot of people ) simple do not read them. These are educated conversations we are having with some people in this thread and are not arguments in my opinion . There are positives and negatives discussed which is what this forum should be as a social contribution.

Also note there will be people here who does not blindly agree or promote everything Govn does. We will discuss, support the good but does not have agree on the bad.

I am/will be be contacting authorities through my sources when a opportunity arises to give them opinion about the postive that can come from Mattala and also the negatives if they are planning this as a replacement for BIA.

if you do not think Govn, is going to build another Airport it is okay, But some one us will try to make sense for the future. We are not talking about building one in next 2 years.

Whitebull wrote:Now the airport has built in Mattala. Long running arguments on the location of the airport is not very much useful now. I do not thing government is going to build another airport in Sri Lanka in near future. So what is the point of long running discussion on location for an airport ?
Now we need to focus on things which are useful to promote this airport. Location wise some say this is suitable and some say this is less suitable. We all know one big reason for this location is it is president's area. There is no argument on that. And we can not blame him for developing his own area.
On the other hand these are long term projects. So I do not think the location wise this would be a big issue when the things get adjusted.

You still can't forget yesterday although you talk big things about broadmind and long term friendships ? I have expressed my opinion using my freedom of expression without violating forum rules. If you do not like it just ignore it without acting like a Guru for all of us.

Mr.Slstock,
Let me tell you this clearly,
I am commenting according my consciousness...not according to any person's request or to satisfy any persons mentality. So I will continue to comment according to my consciousness without violating forum rules. If it is not satisfy your request accept my apology in advance
And I would like to mention that I always talk both negatives and positives of our government and it's political decisions. I do not credit or discredit any political decision without proper reasoning. If you and your members can not understand it, it is your problem being biased towards to me. (Yesterday I tried politely mention you why you lack understanding of comments.)

You seems to have forgotten who I am in this forum

I can not understand what you have meant here ? I know you are one of the Admin even though you do not know to whom you are working for And you have the power to ban the user accounts. But I think you and I both are mature enough to understand that banning here is just an empty threats. And I would like to know the rules in the forum that I have violated to be banned.

Start talking more about equity related topics.

I would like to request you to do a proper census about equity related topic by members before accusing me for not being posting more equity related topics. Then you will see the real picture. And I would like to remind you how I sacrificed my free time in the past. But some of your team members do not know how to make use of it.

It will be in your best interest to show courtesy to my request.

I can not understand above statement also. Could you please further clarify it ? I can not see what I am going to loose if I am banned.

Whitebull,

Don;t waste my time again unnecessary arguments. I already said the reasons clearly.

As an admin I will take a decision in the best interest of this forum. I made a simple request and also posted a topic on the whole forum.


"I can not understand above statement also. Could you please further clarify it ? I can not see what I am going to loose if I am banned. "


" But I think you and I both are mature enough to understand that banning here is just an empty threats."

If you do not care, you do not loose anything by being here , you want to be arrogant not respecting request by 2 admins

You earned your Ban. Hope you come back a more reasonable and respectful person .

After banning


Welcome back mate.

Disappointed the way the forum discussions dragged now a days.
Hope all of us concentrate on the core issues to be discussed.
Share and educate each other.
Have a great trade.

Well this happens for the ppl who put their brains where there asses have to be...
One should at least have the courtesy to listen and understand a problem rather than arguing back and forth.

Admins have given so much of freedom to the members of this forum, would it be another forum, the person would've been banned without any say at all. Sls and I tried to reason-out things with members here when they go wrong. Some we found to be really troublesome in the past have become good learners then contributors correcting their mistakes.
We all, inadvertently could do mistakes. And if somebody points it out, our professionalism would be to listen and correct ourselves.

In this scenario everything was clear as black and white. No further comments were necessary. It was just accepting the facts.

Talking to Rijay was like feeding a troll and there's no point as he stick to his point what so ever. So we can never expect a person like that to correct himself.
It was so unfortunate to see a person has to be banned for the same mistakes twice.

This thread is now locked.