The more is not the merrier for airport

BANGALORE 3RD LARGEST AIRPORT
The more is not the merrier for airport
Deccan Herald

It was this spurt which has led the authorities to direct airline operators not to add more flights during peak hours as the airport was saturated, as reported in these columns on Monday.

Huge strides in terms of passenger traffic and aircraft movements in the last few years and especially in the last one year have become the bane of Bangalore’s HAL airport.

It was this spurt which has led the authorities to direct airline operators not to add more flights during peak hours as the airport was saturated, as reported in these columns on Monday.

Bangalore, which is India’s third largest airport after Delhi and Mumbai in terms of handling of aircraft and passenger traffic, witnessed a massive jump in the number of passengers handled in the last one year ending January 2006. With almost every airline wanting to increase its number of flights to Bangalore from different locations, the domestic passengers handled by the airport rose from 3.19 lakh to 4.72 lakh – an impressive 48.2 per cent increase from January 2005 to January 2006.

During the same period, the number of international passengers increased from 69,141 to 88,884, a 28.6 per cent jump. These are as per the data available with the Airports Authority of India.

The domestic aircraft movements, another indicator of the growth, increased from 4,128 to 5,770 during this period. Increase in the total aircraft movements (domestic and international) handled in Bangalore rose to 34.6 per cent while increase in total freight (international and domestic) handled at the airport witnessed a northward journey of 20.8 per cent.

More passengers

The spurt in the number of passengers handled at the airport can be attributed to the forays into the Bangalore sky made by private airlines: the aircraft movements of private carriers increased by an unprecedented 82.3 per cent, the highest for the country if you ignore the small Amritsar airport. The public sector Air India and Indian accounted for the rest 17.7 per cent of aircraft movements during the one year in contention.

Although Bangalore happens to be the third largest airport in terms of number of passengers carried, Chennai airport is still the third largest if one goes by the number of international traffic handled.

While all the domestic airlines operate from Bangalore – including Paramount Airways which is launching its Bangalore-Chennai twice daily flights from April 19 – there are 11 international airlines which fly out of Bangalore. In the pipeline is KLM-North West Airlines which is planning to launch flights from the IT City to Seattle via Amsterdam. While Australia’s Quantas has shown interest in linking Bangalore with Tokyo, there has been no official communication on Emirates’ reported plans to connect Bangalore with Gulf, AAI sources told Deccan Herald.

Bangalore is already handling close to 80 international flights per week. Virgin Atlantic wants to fly to Bangalore from London, but government permission is not yet available for the flamboyant Sir Richard Branson-led carrier.

Currently, British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa German Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, SriLankan Airlines, Air India, Indian, Royal Nepal Airlines, Gulf Air and Thai Airways operate their flights to and from Bangalore.