Double capacity, minister tells BIAL

Double capacity, minister tells BIAL
DH News Service, New Delhi:
Concerned over congestion at the new Devanahalli aerodrome, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel has asked the Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) to start working on enhancing its capacity.

In an informal chat with journalists, Patel said he has instructed the operator to “double the terminal capacity in three years” by constructing a “mirror terminal”, besides increasing the capacity in eight months by extending the existing terminal (a mirror terminal is the replica of the existing terminal).

However, he did not give any figures on this immediate increase in capacity.

The airport, which opened after several postponements on May 24, has a capacity of about 11 million passengers a year.

“The airport should be bigger. There is need to double the capacity in three years. In the interim, they should increase the capacity on the other side of the terminal so that they can handle more passengers. Unlike the Hyderabad, Bangalore has space constraints in the present airport and this should be addressed immediately,” Patel added.

The minister’s anxiety stemmed from the fact that the airport has already reached saturation and by 2011, it might have to handle 18 million passengers. It is likely that the airport may overshoot its capacity this year itself and handle 12 million capacity.

The BIAL has already laid out its plans. Recently, BIAL CEO Albert Brunner had stated that it would consider raising a low cost terminal. This is besides the second terminal and the second runway that the operator has planned.

The budget terminal is likely to have a capacity of 12 million and cater to low cost airlines. This terminal could be up by 2009-end.

It is expected that the second phase of expansion could cost the BIAL around Rs 2500 crore and the consortium consisting of Siemens with L&T, Unique Zurich, Airports Authority of India and KSIIDC, a Karnataka government agency — is exploring ways of raising this amount.

The first phase of the project cost the BIAL about Rs 2400 crore up from the original estimate of about Rs 1,400 crore.

A meeting to take a call on the user fee to be levied on passengers at various airports, especially the private ones like Bangalore’s, was held at the ministry on Friday but failed to arrive at any proper format for it.
The ministry will meet again shortly to formulate guidelines for the same.

At present, BIAL and Hyderabad airports are not levying UDF on domestic passengers for the first three months but international passengers are charged UDF of Rs 1070 each. The other two privately-managed airports — Delhi and Mumbai — are also demanding permission to levy user fee.