SRI LANKA’S second international airport in the southern town of Hambantota will be ready by next October.

The first phase of Mattala International Airport, costing 24 billion rupees (US$209 million), will take up 800 of the total 2,000 hectares set aside for airport development, according to Johanne Jayaratne, executive director of the state-owned Airport and Aviation Services Ltd.

Parliamentary Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa said 40 per cent of the runway at Mattala, which is able to accommodate Airbus A380 aircraft, has been completed so far.

The new airport’s terminal will be able to accommodate one million passengers a year, compared to six million passengers at the country’s main international airport at Katunayake, about 30 kilometres west of Colombo.