Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) is in the process of relocating its arrivals and departure areas, while the notorious delays at the arrivals counters are reported to have been fixed with the support of the immigration authorities. Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business Airport and Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited’s Head of Airport Management H.S. Hettiarachchi said that a contractor has already been selected for the relocation and work is underway. “We are relocating the immigration area to have a better space for the passengers. We have selected a contractor through a tender process who is doing the work now.” He said that work is expected to be completed in a couple of months. The infrastructure development project also includes the addition of new counters to ease passenger congestion and the enhancement of facilities in the area. “We have 17 counters for departure. So we are planning to increase it to 25 or more. There will be a lot of additional counters coming into the arrivals area as well,” Hettiarachchi noted. Hettiarachchi stated that as a measure towards curbing the congestion further, they are planning to introduce e-gates. “We have planned to install e-gates also. Therefore passengers do not have to come to counters. They can do the processing by the entrance to ease the congestion.” Furthermore, the long standing queues which have been widely complained over the past few weeks at BIA counters due to system failures at counters, have been addressed now. “Immigration Department rectified all defects they had with their system, and will not have long queues going forward. We also observed some development in the area now,” he said. However, he said, such issues are a common problem in any country due to simultaneous arrivals at a time and cannot be avoided. Travellers, both local and foreign, have long complained that the passenger experience at BIA is not conducive to the growth of tourism; and is a far cry from the airports in South East Asia and Middle East, from which most travellers arrive in Colombo after transit.