It has been a wild few weeks for global aviation, particularly for airlines based in the Middle East. For many years, carriers like Emirates and Qatar Airways have been transporting passengers traveling across the globe, and their success with this has largely been due to the safe image these destinations have.
Suffice it to say that recent times have really challenged that. We’ve seen Gulf carriers frequently have to suspend operations due to incoming missiles, and one imagines that this conflict won’t end overnight. Along those lines, could the major Gulf carriers be considering a more creative strategy to keep operations going, without disruption?
In this post:
Sri Lanka offers hub to Emirates & Qatar Airways
It’s being reported that the government of Sri Lanka has initiated preliminary discussions with both Emirates and Qatar Airways, with the intent of offering one of Sri Lanka’s airports as an alternative hub for the foreseeable future.
This doesn’t center around Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB), the country’s largest airport. Instead, this is about Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (HRI), often referred to as the country’s “ghost airport.” The billion dollar airport opened back in 2013, and unfortunately has seen very little commercial service, so it has been a bit of an embarrassment for the country.
At least the airport now has some additional seasonal service — you can fly Russia’s Red Wings from Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Mineralnye Vody, Samara, Sochi, and Tyumen!
Both airlines have reportedly “expressed strong interest” in moving some of their operations to the southern Sri Lankan airport. Now, it’s anyone’s guess how serious that interest is, but that’s seemingly what the government is claiming.
When you consider the percentage of Emirates’ network that involves moving people from Europe and Africa to Asia and the South Pacific, then you realize the geography of this hub is potentially quite good, as it sits along popular Indian Ocean east-west aviation corridors, and it’s also far south of the current conflict zone.
Sri Lanka hopes that such a setup could provide a vital economic lifeline to the country, especially as the current situation in the Middle East has caused a steep decline in tourism to Sri Lanka, due to flight cancelations.
Something creative will need to happen, but…
It’s really hard to know how this conflict will play out. Currently, it seems like airlines are approaching this as a short term challenge that will be resolved soon, and expect full operations to resume ASAP. I’m certainly no expert on geopolitics, but I have to imagine there’s also a very real possibility that this could go on for many weeks, months, or possibly even years.
Presumably if airlines knew things wouldn’t be fully back to normal for a year, they’d start making some alternative arrangements. As I see it, Sri Lanka’s idea here isn’t half bad. Sri Lanka does have good geography, and Sri Lanka has the “good fortune” of having a basically abandoned airport that has huge capacity but no demand — talk about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make something of it. 😉
Given what a large percentage of Emirates’ network is connecting, I could see merit to rerouting some of the most common connecting itineraries via Sri Lanka. For example, you could operate flights to London, Sydney, etc. We’ve already seen Qatar Airways operate point-to-point routes from Europe to Asia (simply skipping Doha), so this hardly seems like the wildest idea.
As I see it, the biggest challenge is how quickly you can really ramp up operations. Sure, the airport is technically big enough to accommodate A380s, but how long would it actually take to get all the ground equipment, set up catering, have sufficient housing and hotels near the airport, etc.? This is all easier said than done, and I imagine this would be viewed as too much of a headache for a temporary situation.
Bottom line
Sri Lanka is offering up its “ghost airport” as a hub for airlines like Emirates and Qatar Airways, with government officials claiming that the airlines are interested. If it does become necessary to route operations via other regions, then a large, nearly abandoned airport, with good geography, seems like a decent choice.
While I obviously see the upside here for Sri Lanka, I have to imagine this is unlikely to happen in the near future, given the amount of preparation that would be required to get this up and running.
What do you make of the concept of a Gulf carrier setting up a hub in Sri Lanka?
If Air India had more new A350s, it could use this crisis as a way to make itself and its Delhi hub a viable alternative to the Gulf carriers. If I was AI, I would be wet-leasing as many planes with modern cabins as I could, or offering Delhi as a temp hub for QR or Ethiad.
Airport isnt big at all, just 2 gates with jet bridges and single runway. Hard to believe how this cost a billion to build based on satellite image of the airport.
Perhaps some airports in India/Pakistan (which might be underutilizing its capacity) are better equipped for handling some of the gulf load, besides locations in Saudi/Oman
Ben, could they set up a temporary hub in your favorite airport? ;)
Ben, I have to say - it's a little funny to characterize this new hub a superior option while the pictured route from LHR runs right through the center of Iran ;)
On a more serious note and relatedly - the flight community is seeing lots of zeroed out space without formal cancellations. This might merit a separate post and I'll bet any insights would generate lots of interest...
Very innovative but with challenges. Add JetA-1 to list which is already starting to impact some counties and their airlines like Vietnam.
Would Brunei make sense as an alternative? I don't think they get much traffic.
BWN is too far out east and would only make sense for traffic connecting to AUS, NZL and maybe Philippines. Sri Lanka is a better geographical replacement that won't involve any 'backtracking' to SE Asian countries.
The big issue with Sri Lanka geographically (beyond other issues like fuel or terminal capacity) is it suddenly involves backtracking for a lot of the Europe --> India traffic, which is a huge market for the Gulf carriers.
MAA, BLR, TVM and COK are around an hour's flying from CMB today. HYD is another 40 mins. So it's not that bad for a big chunk. But BOM and DEL, with 9 daily flights, will be affected significantly. As also AMD and CCU. Perhaps a split operation may work?
I thought of Brunei as they're empty compared to Colombo. And @VS below mentioned Sri Lanka is experiencing a shortage of fuel. Brunei is not experiencing a fuel shortage as they're a major oil & gas exporter. And being one of the wealthiest countries in the world helps.
you could peel off some Europe to Australasia demand and connect it someplace other than the Middle East but no other airports can handle the amount of flights that run through the Middle East - and the connectivity of the remaining flights is significantly reduced.
This is an existential moment for the Gulf carriers and their prominence in global aviation could be significantly reduced not just this year but well into the future.
The biggest...
you could peel off some Europe to Australasia demand and connect it someplace other than the Middle East but no other airports can handle the amount of flights that run through the Middle East - and the connectivity of the remaining flights is significantly reduced.
This is an existential moment for the Gulf carriers and their prominence in global aviation could be significantly reduced not just this year but well into the future.
The biggest beneficiaries are the Euro flag carriers as well as the Indian and other SE Asian carriers that are seeing capacity over the Middle East pulled out; even as capacity returns, there will be lingering doubts about the safety of the Middle East until there is no possibility of Iran acting out again.
Would make more sense if they ramp up operations from Saudi airports the same way other -albeit smaller- Gulf airlines have.
DMM is easily reachable by land from DOH and fifth freedom rights have been granted to others in record time. RUH also just completed a large renovation with a big increase in capacity and it’s a 6-hour drive away, Riyadh air won’t be filling these extra spots any time soon.
There is only one minor problem with this plan - Sri Lanka doesn't have enough aviation fuel. Even in normal times, Sri Lankan Airlines had fueling stops in India for months at a time, because the country was virtually out of foreign reserves to import any oil.