Minister of Ports, Shipping & Aviation Services, Nimal Siripala De Silva says that the Mattala Airport is currently being operated at a monthly loss of Rs. 100 million rupees.
“We need to continue the operation of the Mattala airport as a backup airport for emergency landings as if there is no such facility, these flights would have to be diverted to Chennai” he said while talking to reporters today.
The minister said that due to this reason, the Airport has to be maintained even reluctantly, though it is incurring a loss.
He further said that it has been identified that the Airport has been built within a wild elephant habitat and currently there is a threat of wild elephants entering the airport premises breaking the electric elephant fence.
As a solution to the wild elephant threat, the minister said that attention has been drawn to grow palmyrah trees in the bare lands between the elephant fence and the airport premises.