flydubai (FZ, Dubai International) has terminated its services to Hambantota in Sri Lanka, leaving the airport in the southern part of the island without any international flights, the Asian Mirror has reported.
The Emirati carrier was serving Hambantota out of Dubai International via Colombo International with B737-800 equipment. The flights have reportedly been both commercially unviable and operationally challenging due to frequent bird strikes at the Sri Lankan airport.
flydubai continues to serve Colombo Int'l 14x weekly, the ch-aviation capacity module shows.
Following the termination of flydubai's service, the only airline serving Hambantota is domestic specialist Cinnamon Air (C7, Colombo International), which connects the airport with Dikwella, Koggala, Kotte, and Colombo International 7x weekly using Cessna (single turboprop) 208B equipment.
The Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport in Hambantota has failed to obtain any sustainable traffic since its opening in 2013. The greenfield project was supposed to kickstart the economy in the southern part of Sri Lanka and was nearly entirely financed by the Exim Bank of China. The nearby Hambantota Harbour has also been financed by China and is currently leased to Chinese investors.
Retiring SriLankan Airlines CEO Suren Ratwatte has recently told CAPA that the Hambantota airport would be a white elephant project but would be relatively harmless to the Sri Lankan economy since nearly all costs were borne by China.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, Colombo Int'l is currently Sri Lanka's sole international gateway.
