Colombo Ratmalana Airport is set to see its maiden scheduled international passenger flights in fifty years after the Sri Lankan and Maldivian governments agreed to use the facility as a gateway.
According to a Sri Lankan government press release, Sri Lankan Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, Nimal de Silva, met with his Maldivian counterpart, Moosa Sameer, in Colombo last week. At that meeting, de Silva declared Ratmalana Airport fit for international operations once more.
As it stands, Maldivian (Q2, Malé) will run a 3x weekly return service to the airport from Malé using Dash 8 turboprop equipment in the coming weeks. The route is aimed primarily at the tourist niche given the airfield's closer proximity to downtown Colombo than Colombo International Airport.
Ratmalana Airport was Sri Lanka's first and only international airport until all foreign traffic was transferred to Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport in 1967.
Since then, the airfield has catered primarily to general aviation, flight school training, and commercial domestic flights operated by FitsAir (8D, Colombo International), Helitours (Colombo Ratmalana), and Millenium Airlines (Colombo International) among others.
