COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —Travelers from Sri Lanka's Tamil-majority north say tuk-tuk drivers near the country's main international airport are charging thousands of rupees for a few-kilometer ride from a bus stop to the terminal.
The complaints center on the 18th Mile Post junction, known in Sinhala as Dahata Kanuwa, near Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake. Long-distance buses drop passengers at or near the junction, and travelers must find their own transportation for the rest of the trip to the airport.
The route is heavily used by Tamils from the north. Sri Lanka's Tamil diaspora, much of it formed by people who left during the country's civil war, numbers in the hundreds of thousands, with large communities in Canada, Britain, Europe and Australia. Many return to visit family, and relatives from Jaffna and other northern districts travel to Katunayake almost daily to meet them.
Most of those visitors fly into Colombo. The airport at Palaly, outside Jaffna, handles only a limited number of regional flights, mainly to India, and successive governments have not expanded it into a full international airport despite repeated calls from northern politicians and residents.
Most of the fare complaints involve late-night and early-morning arrivals, when many international flights land and depart and public transportation is limited.
S. Kanthasamy, 61, said he paid 5,000 rupees for the ride after arriving at the junction on an air-conditioned bus from Jaffna. He had traveled to Katunayake to meet a relative at the airport.
Suresh Kumar, 36, told Jaffna Monitor that he reached the junction around 2:30 a.m. and that tuk-tuk drivers waiting there asked him for 6,000 rupees. He instead booked an Uber, which cost him about 400 rupees.
Travelers unfamiliar with the area may not realize how close the airport is to the junction or what a fair price would be. Tamil-speaking passengers with little Sinhala can also find it harder to negotiate.
A warning now being shared among Tamil travelers advises passengers arriving by bus to book a vehicle through a ride-hailing app such as PickMe or Uber, which show an estimated fare and route before a ride is accepted. Those who do not use the apps are advised to ask a relative or friend to book a ride for them remotely.
