BIA launch: Decision tomorrow

BIA launch: Decision tomorrow
By C S Hemanth, DH News Service, Bangalore:
The State government has assured the visiting Civil Aviation Ministry team that all pending road works connecting the city to the BIA in Devanahalli will be completed before March 28.


A day after the successful public flight trials at the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA), the Civil Aviation Ministry is making all out efforts to ensure that the airport is operational as scheduled on March 30.

Despite major hurdles, the ministry is keen that the launch is not deferred.
Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, K N Srivastava who was part of the visiting team that held a high-level meeting here on Saturday to discuss on the airport status, told Deccan Herald that efforts were on to settle all key issues so that the airport goes on stream as scheduled. “We are making all-out efforts to ensure that the airport starts commercial operations on March 30,” Srivastava said.

“Decisions on several critical issues including safety concerns over the Air Traffic Control at the airport would be put forth before Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel on March 10 when the final decision on the commercial launch date will be taken,” the sources said.

The Civil Aviation Ministry team, along with Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which was present at the airport during the public trials, is expected to place its report before Mr Patel. “The team has observed 58 critical areas including the concerns over ATC. Only 10 of them need to be satisfied and can be completed before the opening day,” the sources said.

On ATC, the visiting team is said to have decided to give two weeks’ training to personnel to familiarise them with equipment before commissioning the ATC.