• Minister confident multi-level terminal will add capacity to handle 9 m passengers annually

By Charumini de Silva

The Government will ink an agreement today with Japan’s Taisei Corporation to build a multi-level terminal building at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA).

Minister  Prasanna Ranatunga

The Cabinet of Ministers on 19 February approved the proposal submitted by Industrial Export, Investment Promotion, Tourism and Aviation Minister Prasanna Ranatunga to award the $ 564 million contract to Taisei Corporation.

The Memorandum of Understanding will be signed today morning at the Ministry premises at the World Trade Centre (WTC) Colombo under the patronage of Minister Ranatunga, senior officials of Taisei Corporation and Ministry officials.

The Government embarked on the major infrastructure development project as it was imperative to increase the capacity of the airport’s passenger terminal of BIA to accommodate the expected increase in the annual passenger capacity to 20 million passengers by 2025.

Accordingly, the contract relating to the Phase II ‘A’ package of the BIA, was awarded to Taisei Corporation for a total value of Japanese Yen 41.55 billion and Rs.35.15 billion. The two-part project consisting of ‘Package A’ and ‘Package B’ is funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

“As the main international airport BIA in Katunayake is already operating with over capacity. The expansion will add the capacity to handle nine million more passengers a year,” Ranatunga told Daily FT.

Under the project a new multi-level terminal building, two new piers and a link course will be built. The ‘Package A’ consists of construction of new multilevel terminal building (Terminal 2) with an approximate floor area of 180,000 m2, where arrivals and departures are separated vertically, Pier no.2 and Pier no.3 with a link concourse, new parking apron and taxiways, elevated access roads, multi-story car park and public utilities.

He said that the airport was currently handling over six million passengers though it was built to handle around five million persons a year.

A concessionary loan agreement for Japanese Yen 45,428 million (Rs.56 billion) was signed on 24 March 2016 between the Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited (AASL) and JICA for Phase II ‘Package A’.

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