‘We’ll make BIA’s services amongst the best’

‘We’ll make BIA’s services amongst the best’ Sujit John & Anshul Dhamija | TNN
Bangalore: After seven years in Bangalore, Albert Brunner, CEO of Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), will leave to take up a new assignment in Latin America. Stepping into his shoes will be Marcel Hungerbuehler, currently the COO, who has been 38 years in the aviation industry, holding management positions at Swissair and Swissport before joining BIAL during its start-up period. Hungerbuehler is a marathon runner and has run the New York and London marathons, and loves cross-country skiing when he is back home in Switzerland. Brunner and Hungerbuehler together met TOI on Monday to speak on a host of issues:
Mr Brunner, on hindsight, is there something you would have liked to do differently in your seven years in Bangalore? Brunner: If I had known the civil aviation sector in India would grow so fast, we would have built a bigger airport. But we still managed to increase capacity substantially in between, without delaying the project. In fact, if we had started construction in 2002, as initially thought, things would have been very different today. But the signing of all the agreements etc., took much longer than anticipated. So construction could begin only in 2005. I would also have liked to see a rail link from the airport to the city. It was not part of our scope, it should have been done by the government or on a PPP basis, and we could have participated in it.
But some think a high speed rail link is not financially viable? B: It won’t be viable if it is meant only for the airport. But it will be viable if it is a metro with threefour stations in between. Look at the development up to Yelahanka, look at all those people working at the airport who will be moving to that part of the city.
BIAL just got the permission to charge a user development fee (UDF) of Rs 260. Are you happy?
We are glad that people will get used to the concept of paying for an infrastructure facility. But we have disagreed with the ministry’s approach towards calculating the UDF. They are saying the Hyderabad airport had the same investment, and the traffic is lower there, so the fee in Bangalore should be lower than in Hyderabad. Our point is each airport should be looked at differently, based on costs, services and future expansion plans. Even with this UDF, we will be making losses, especially if you take into account depreciation costs which the ministry has not accounted for. We are hopeful they will increase the UDF in time.
With the UDF in, will you now take your expansion plan forward?
B: We had kept the expansion plan on hold because the UDF wasn’t there. In six months, we hope to go to the board with a plan. A new business plan is being worked out based on the new realities.
The dip in air traffic will probably allow you to go a little slow on expansion.
B: Sure, we have more than enough capacity for at least two years.
Hungerbuehler: But we are still looking at an interim temporary terminal.
Mr Hungerbuehler, what are your immediate priorities?
It will be to achieve the service level that we had defined for ourselves. We had told the government we will get to a score of 3.5 in the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey in the third year of operation. We intend to do that in the first year itself (ASQ is a quantitative market research exercise across 33 service parameters and is used to benchmark more that 120 airports worldwide. The parameters cover all passenger touch-points where passengers rate on a score of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest). The best airports in the world have a score of about 4. Delhi and Mumbai have been about 2.4-2.6. We will be focussing on the IT infrastructure, on collaborative decision-making with all stakeholders, on fast turnarounds.
There are rumours that GMR is keen to pick up the stake of one of your shareholders.
B: That’s baseless. All shareholders have lock-in periods and can’t exit immediately.
The Karnataka High Court has ruled that your contract with Nuance and Shoppers’ Stop for the airport duty free area was not properly done. B: We will go to the Supreme Court on the matter. Forbes has ranked Bangalore airport the fourth worst in the world in delayed arrivals.
B: That’s because of delayed departures from their respective airports. There’s no congestion at Bangalore airport that delays arrivals.