The Sri Lankan government has granted international status to Colombo Ratmalana and Batticaloa effective as of January 1, 2020, government-run News.lk has reported.
The airports will become Sri Lanka's third and fourth international gateway, following Colombo International and Jaffna. The latter airport is due to open for international flights in mid-October 2019.
According to the ch-aviation capacities module, Colombo Bandaranaike is currently the only Sri Lankan airport with scheduled international flights. flydubai (FZ, Dubai International) used to operate to Hambantota, Sri Lanka's southern gateway, until June 2018, but the flights from Dubai International were operating as triangle services via Colombo and not directly.
