UP... UP... AND AWAY

UP... UP... AND AWAY
BIA finally took off on Friday night, sending the city’s reputation as an aviation hub to stratospheric heights. Team TOI rings out the old and brings in the new There’s excitement in the air at BIA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK



The opening of the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) has not dampened passengers’ spirits even though issues of poor connectivity loom large.
Six domestic flights — three each of Jet Airways and Air India — that touched down at BIA on Friday night, saw average load-factor levels hover around the 90% mark. Traditionally, Friday-night flights into Bangalore, especially long-haul flights from destinations such as Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata, record high load-factor levels. At times, 100% passenger load is accounted for, as business travellers hop back to the city for the weekend. All the flights that landed at BIA were from domestic long-haul destinations.
“A number of Bangalore-based passengers called to ask whether we would land at BIA. When we informed them that their flight would land at the new airport, they were very excited,’’ said a Jet Airways spokesperson. He added, “We have seen no mass rescheduling of flight timings by passengers to land at HAL airport.”
But a small section of passengers on the Mumbai-Bangalore Jet flight did look at taking the earlier flight out of Mumbai, to avoid landing at the new airport. “It’s not that I didn’t want to see the new airport, but I wanted to reach home earlier,” said the passenger. India’s leading value-based airline, Deccan, chose not to fly in to the new airport on May 23, citing passenger convenience. All its flights landed at the HAL airport and flew empty to BIA at midnight. Though this pinched the airline’s pockets, as additional fuel was burned, passenger comfort was put on priority.
Other premium and low-cost airlines like Kingfisher and Spice Jet followed suit.