BMTC ready with buses to International airport

BMTC ready with buses to International airport
By S Praveen Dhaneshkar, D H News Service, Bangalore:
The opening of the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA), might have been put off to May 11, but the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has adhered to its deadline and is all ready to ply its shuttle buses to Devanahalli from March 31.


BMTC will run Volvo buses to BIAL in Devanahali from various localities including Electronic City, J P Nagar 6th Phase, KSRTC Mysore Road Bus Terminus, Whitefield (ITPL), Jeevan Bhima Nagar, Koramangala and HAL Airport.

BMTC is offering a pre-inaugural bonanza to airport commuters in the airport buses by offering the public a free ride to Devanahalli, from various start up points of the service. This service will run for two days before May 11.

Says Upendra Tripathy, managing director of BMTC, “We would like the people and commuters to have a free trial run to the airport by April or May. This practice is followed world wide. In Taiwan the government ran free trips for commuters when the city metro rail took its first run.

Irrespective of the new opening date of BIAL, we were ready to ply the airport buses even from the original date of March 31. Now, that the airport opening is put off until the first week of May we have to keep the buses idle till then.”

BMTC says all 40 airport buses procured at a cost of Rs 70 lakh each will be delivered by Volvo by March 28. “We will be incurring losses due to delay in opening of the airport. Since they have been custom built with a configuration to cater to airport passengers, we cannot run them on city routes” Tripathy adds.

A tender process to offer GPS taxi and auto pick-up services from the residence and hotels of commuters to the nearest airport Volvo point will also be called in the first week of April by BMTC to make the service passenger-friendly, explained Tripathy.