Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport — Mattala, Sri Lanka

HRI is Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, located near Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka. Opened with ambitions to become a major aviation hub, it gained international attention for being notably underutilized relative to its large capacity, sometimes described in media as one of the world's emptiest international airports. Built partly with Chinese financing as part of broader regional infrastructure investment, HRI has struggled to attract sustained airline traffic away from Colombo's main Bandaranaike International Airport. The airport occasionally serves as a diversion or overflow facility and has hosted limited charter and low-cost carrier routes, while local officials continue exploring ways to boost its usage.