Bengaluru airport — making a mark on global aviation map

Bengaluru airport — making a mark on global aviation map

Our Bureau

Bangalore, May 23

Bangalore has a new global aviation address. The new Bengaluru International Airport at Devanahalli has finally made it to the world aviation charts.

On Friday, the new airport stood ready for the switchover.It was a no-frills opening without fanfare as the code of conduct for the just-ended Karnataka Assembly elections is valid until May 28.

In contrast, the new Hyderabad airport at Shamshabad saw a ceremonial flag-off by Ms Sonia Gandhi in early March. The operator has planned an inauguration ceremony in June when the new State Government is in place.

BIA handled the first demonstration flights on March 7, but was snared in delays due to technical and political reasons.

The airport was built over 33 months from July 2005 over 4,000 acres provided by the State Government, 40 km north of the city, and just off the Hyderabad road, NH7.

Mr Albert Brunner, CEO of the operator company Bangalore International Airport Ltd, spent the first part of the day in the High Court where a bunch of public interest litigations are being heard, questioning the closure of the old airport as granted in the concession agreement.

For the past few months, Bangaloreans have been agitated over the distance, higher cost impact of the new airport and the simultaneous ceasing of the civil operations at the old HAL airport which is within the city.

Pressure groups led by corporate honchos Ms Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Mr Mohandas Pai, Mr Devesh Agarwal, Mr Vivek Kulkarni and NGOs like Mr Ramesh Ramanathan have joined the pro-HAL airport chorus along with public interest litigants.

Originally planned to start on March 30, but the AAI cried a halt saying its equipment was not ready and the air traffic controllers needed time to train.

It had to abandon the next two dates, May 11 and 23, as the State Assembly elections were on until May 22.

The airport got its provisional licence on May 16, two days after the Centre gazetted that the old serving civil enclave of the HAL airport would be closed for flights of scheduled commercial airlines when BIA begins operations.

The Hyderabad airport could not take off for nearly two weeks after launch as airlines were protesting the high price of ground handling.

At BIA, there should be no such problem as, “We have found arrangements with all [but two] airlines,” Mr Stephan Widrig, Chief Commercial Officer and one of its top brass, told Business Line. The new airport is expected to handle over 300 flights on its first day, of which 170 would be arrivals.

The contentious user development fee is in place at Rs 1,070 each on international passengers.

The domestic traveller has been exempted the Rs 655-fee for three months from operation.

Around 700 personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force that guards vital public installations were deployed a week back.

The city police commissioner has clamped three-day prohibitory order on Bangalore North and North-East from Friday morning to the midnight of May 26 to prevent protest rallies and disruption of traffic on currently the only access road from Bangalore.

Several organisations have planned to disrupt services at the new airport.

The pro-Kannada Karnataka Rakshana Vedike is expected to take out a rally.

BIA factfile

Promoters: Siemens Project Ventures (40 per cent); Unique Zurich Airport (17 per cent); L&T (17 per cent); Airports Authority of India (13 per cent) and state-owned KSIIDC (13 per cent).

Cargo handlers: Air India-Singapore Airport Terminal Services (AI-SATS) and Bobba Group-Menzies Aviation.

Ground handlers: AI-SATS and Lufthansa associate GlobeGround.

Flight caterers: LSG Sky Chefs and Taj-SATS.

Aviation fuel: Indian Oil-Skytanking; and BPCL-STARS.

Cost: Rs 2,500 crore including promoter equity, debt and State support of Rs 350 crore

First year capacity: 12 million passengers

Cargo handling capacity: 3 lakh tonnes

Peak hour traffic: 2,730 passengers