AAI says BIA is saturated

AAI says BIA is saturated

Staff Reporter

Runway to reach that stage by 2011

There are 42 bays for aircraft and the demand is for 41

A top-level AAI team submitted a status report

BANGALORE: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has said that the peak hour traffic at international wing (terminal) of the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) at Devanahalli near here will be saturated by 2009 while it has already reached saturation point in case of domestic wing.

It says the terminal has reached saturation point as BIA has an integrated terminal comprising domestic and international departure/arrival wings.

This finding has been given by the AAI in its “Report on Capacity Assessment and Study of BIAL”.

A team of AAI officials from its Directorate of Corporate Planning and Management Sciences (CP and MS) comprising D.P. Singh (General Manager-CP and MS), D.P. Singh (GM), Ms. Madhu Batre, Jt. GM, V. Krishnan (senior manager) and A. Pai (senior manager) had undertaken the study of BIA between June 16 and June 18.
Car parking

AAI says the car parking facility is adequate for the next five years. The commercial car parking lot has 2,000 parking slots for cars and 75 stands for coaches.

In addition, there are stands for parking 1,200 cars belonging to the staff.

The peak hour runway capacity is 32 movements (of aircraft) against the current projected demand of 25 movements per hour. The runway is likely to reach saturation point by 2011.

There are now 42 aircraft parking bays as against the current demand for 41 bays. The report says 30 more bays are under construction and once they are completed, the bays are sufficient to meet the demand for the next five years.

Import cargo section is near saturation while export and domestic cargo bays have adequate capacities. Import cargo wing should have been allocated higher area in preference to dwell time. The report says import cargo capacity is 65,300 tonnes a year, domestic 56,548, export 2,28,000 and domestic 51,507 tonnes a year.

During 2007-08, BIA handled 10.12 million passengers, of which 1.55 million were international passengers and 8.57 million domestic travellers.

The report says BIA is the fourth busiest airport in India.

It says during the last five years, Bangalore air traffic has recorded a compound annual growth rate of 33.4 per cent for international travel and 29 per cent for domestic travel.