Bangalore, we have a problem There's no space to land

Bangalore, we have a problem There's no space to land

Current airspace is not enough to accommodate growing traffic at BIA

Monica Jha. Bangalore

The Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) is experiencing a surge in air traffic and could soon feel the need for a larger airspace.
With three major aerodromes active in Bangalore, airspace availability and its management over the city could become a bone of contention once again between BIA and the ministry of defence (MoD).
The city's airspace, apart from BIA, is shared by Air Force Station Yelahanka (AFSY) and HAL airport.
BIA and MoD had heckled for years to finalise the present airspace map, which provides the airport less than 40% of all of Bangalore's airspace.
But, just 18 months into its running, the BIA is staring into the face of saturation with 296 flights taking off and landing daily from the airport.
"After reaching a maximum of 400 daily flights at BIA, we will have to think about how we can handle further growth. Restructuring of airspace could be the solution. They may carve out some airspace from the military (AFSY)," AN Vishwanath, general manager, co-ordination in-charge, Airports Authority of India (AAI), told DNA.
"We have an efficient air traffic control system, but handling more than 350-400 flights a day will be difficult. BIA, with all its capacity in terms of airspace, equipment and skills, can handle annually a steady growth of 10%. Anything more than this is a problem. A steeper growth would give us no time to upgrade the system to cope with the growing air traffic," said Vishwanath.