The World's Emptiest International Airport

For those who can't access Forbes, it's a really interesting article about Sri Lanka's Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (HRI). It is an enormous airport that almost nobody goes to has one daily flight and

"a 12,000 square meter terminal building, 12 check-in counters, two gates, a runway long enough to handle the largest commercial jets, and capacity for one million passengers per year"

It was funded by Chinese companies trying to invest in large infrastructure projects, and partly the fault of the dictator of Sri Lanka, who was recently displaced.

San Bernardino International may be emptier: http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2014/03/26/16181/san-berna...

Reminds me of the massive bus terminal in Tel Aviv, which is in some ways the opposite (crowded, but not necessarily with passengers):

http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/stop-that-bus/

Too bad Forbes requires you to disable adblock.

I would be willing to fly to it to easily experience being in the middle of the jungle. If they can develop sustainable eco tourism that would be a boost for the local economy. Hopefully it would be a trickle that starts a stream of revenue for the region.

This reminds me of The Tale of Two Bridges: http://hintjens.com/blog:16

I was half expecting it to name my local airport, Dayton International - the security line is usually about 6 people or less when I go through. It's a breeze compared to most other airports I visit.

I think it must have one flight to Canadia or something, I'm not sure how else it would get the 'International' moniker.

heh. Reminds me of the alleged ghost cities of China. Huge development projects in back waters waiting to be populated. Since China was behind the investment I wouldn't be surprised if similar mechanisms are at play between the domestic and international variant of this phenomena.