Airlines ready for the new facility

Airlines ready for the new facility

Staff Reporter

Many have deployed additional staff for the first few days

Aircraft may start landing at the airport from

8 p.m. on May 22

BANGALORE: With just over 48 hours remaining for the inauguration of the new international airport at Devanahalli, airlines are gearing up to commence operations from the new facility.

While most ground handling staff of the airlines has had familiarisation exercise in the new airport, a few are bringing staff from other metro cities to assist the staff here in handling the situation for the first few days at least.

Although the new airport will commence operations, as flights have been asked to land at Devanahalli after 8 p.m. on May 22, some airlines are expected to post their staff well in advance on May 22 while retaining a fraction of them at the existing HAL airport.

The Air India spokesperson told The Hindu that the staff had been trained already and have familiarised with the systems and environment, and that the Air India has been making arrangements for some time now.

“Staff has been trained on various aspects of passenger handling, including checking-in passengers, security checks, baggage handling, aerobridges and others,” he added.

General Manager of Jet Airways U.H. Shenoy said that operations for the staff would remain the same, and that they had been familiarised with the new facility.

He said that the Jet did not intend to increase staff since the scale of operations would be similar to what was being undertaken at HAL airport.

The Kingfisher Airlines is set to bring staff from other metro stations for 10 days to support the existing staff here and help them cope with the changed environment.

These were the same set of staff who were positioned in Hyderabad during the opening of the new airport, a spokesperson said.
Testing

Further, the spokesperson said that staff had gone through familiarisation process at the new airport which was a part of the induction programme designed for them and live testing for the flights had been completed successfully.

While the ground handling for Air India would be managed by the Air India-SATS, the Globe Ground India will be in-charge of ground handling for Kingfisher Airlines.
Hyderabad experience

Airlines are drawing from their experience when the new airport in Hyderabad commenced operations, which would help them streamline the operations in Bangalore.

Both airports have certain common features in terms of distance from the city, large spread out terminal building area and highly automated environment, which would definitely help the airlines plan well, said Kingfisher Airlines spokesperson.