HAL Airport: The end of an era...

HAL Airport: The end of an era...
Bangalore, DHNS:
It was a mix of sadness and nostalgia all around, as a Singapore Airlines flight took off for the last time from the HAL Airport at 11.05 pm on Friday. It was the last international flight from an airport, which for several lakh Bangaloreans, stood as the only option to fly in and out of an emerging world city.

As the curtains came down on the commercial operations at the HAL Airport - despite frenzied demands from several quarters to keep it open - the message was clear. It was the end of an era, and even if the airport were to open at a later date, the ambience would never be the same again.

For decades, the airport had remained as a small blip on the Indian commercial aviation map. The buzz that permeated the entire airport complex till Friday night, was a distant dream in 1940, the year the airport struck its roots as an enterprise initiated by the late Walchand Hirachand.

HAL Airport’s beginnings had a global intent in a World War era. Then called the Hindustan Aircraft Limited, the facility was established in December 1940 to service the Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) aircraft, in preparation for operations on the Burma front. Three months later, in March 1941 to be precise, sensing the strategic nature of the enterprise, the then colonial Government of India became a shareholder. The stage was set for the first ever aircraft to take off from the HAL Airport in July 1941.

In 1942, with the Japanese closing in on the Eastern frontiers, the Government of India took over the management of the enterprise. Subsequently, the Aircraft Manufacturing Deport (AMD) was established at Kanpur to undertake licensed manufacture of the Hawker Siddeley (HS) - 748 and Avro aircraft. Around the same time, the Aeronautics India Limited was set up, with factories at Nasik, Koraput and Hyderabad, for the licensed manufacture of the legendary MiG-21 aircraft. The airport in Bangalore was destined to get its present name as the HAL Airport, once the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited came into being on October 1, 1964, through the merger of HAL, AMD and Aeronautics India Limited.

In the meantime, Bangalore was emerging as one of the fastest growing cities of the continent.