BIAL not so bad, says students' survey report

BIAL not so bad, says students' survey report
S Praveen Dhaneshkar, D H News Service, Bangalore:


As the new Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL), continues to be in the limelight of the Joint House Committee for the lack of adequate public infrastructure facilities and alleged violation of terms during the construction stage, a bunch of enterprising students of final year BSc (Statistics) from Mount Carmel College who interviewed 224 Bangaloreans, most of them airport users, for a project report gave a surprising positive feedback on the airport facilities and described them as good.

The report prepared by seven girls led by Rashmi Kumari (Project Leader) and Nuti Gupta (Assistant Project Leader) has even bagged the first prize in project exhibition at the statistics fest "Inference” conducted by Christ College University last month.

Prefer old airport

The report found that 58 pc of the sample size preferred having the old HAL airport remain open for commercial flight operations along with BIAL.

While the respondents said that BIAL had very good entry points, lot of open and sitting space, good access to parking, it also gave an interesting feedback - both the airports cannot be functional together, one for international and the other for domestic flight operations simply because they were located at different ends of the City.

Besides, the report contains some suggestions that could be adopted by the BIAL. These include localisation of public address system only to gates and having more display boards for gate numbers , prescribing age limit and minimum educational qualifications for all airport supporting staff and improving available public transportation
facility.

Overall the findings state that the BIAL does have an edge over the HAL airport and facilities are indeed
better.

The other students who were part of the project team are: Khushboo Rani, Lily B Sharma, O P Deepthi, Swetha N and C Pratibha.

REPORTS FINDINGS

*People travelling to BIAL from Bangalore:
East (26 pc), West (16 pc), North (28 pc), South (30 pc)
*Concerned about distance and lack of good roads to BIAL: Yes (77 pc), No (23 pc)
*User Development fee (UDF) for international passengers: Must be reduced (54 pc), Reasonable (23 pc), Do away with UDF (23 pc).
*Should HAL airport be open, along with BIAL:
Yes (62 pc), No (38 pc).
*Does high cost of transportation to BIA affect budget airline passengers: Yes (75 pc), No (25 pc)
*Comparision of facilities at BIAL with that of HAL: Parking:- Excellent (49 pc), Good (42 pc)
Catering/food:- Excellent (19 pc), Good (56 pc)