Bengaluru International Airport Ltd (BIAL)
It was a project desperately waiting to take off. Finally, after several years of deliberation and dilly dallying, the Bengaluru International Airport is ready.
An international airport was long overdue in Bengaluru, which has a large number of people from the international community visiting it, thanks to the city attaining the status of India's Silicon Valley.
Ironically, all these years, Bengaluru did not have a full-fledged airport and was relying on the services of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited airfield. The government had entered into an understanding with HAL and was making use of their airfield for both domestic and international flights.
However, as the years passed by, it became necessary to have a bigger airport as the number of passengers and flights were on the rise. But it was not an easy task to actually set up the airport
A small History
The project which was conceived in the year 1991 was initially supposed to be undertaken by a consortium led by the Tatas. However, the Tatas walked out of the project due to delays in the clearance of the project. After this, there was complete silence on the project. Meantime, there were several rounds of litigation in various courts questioning the acquisition of land for the project.
In 1999, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Karnataka State Industries Development Corporation and the Airport Authority of India to set up an international airport. A tender was floated, the bidding process was held, and the project was finally bagged by a consortium consisting of Siemens, Zurich Airport, and Larsen & Toubro. These companies hold equity in the project.
It will be the 3rd busiest airport
The project got final clearance in 2004, and, in 2005, the land lease agreement was signed. Work on the project commenced in July 2005. This airport will be the third busiest in the country with at least 7.5 million passengers using it every year. The airport is expected to have at least 900 domestic flights a week.
Barring the distance that needs to be covered to reach the airport, the facilities look good and passengers should have no complaints.
A fully air-conditioned passenger terminal and a two-level building will accommodate both international and domestic operations. The arrival and departure areas are separated vertically, with a straight ahead flow system for easy operation and minimum maintenance. This terminal has been designed to accommodate at least 2,733 passengers during the peak hours.
Image: Main Terminal
Design: Out of the total 4,300 acres of land earmarked for this project, 2,000 acres is occupied by the runway, terminal, air traffic control towers and buildings. The apron area covers 182,000 metres and there shall be 40 aircraft stands.
The rest of the land will be used for infrastructure-related projects such as a hardware technology park and extended cargo terminals.
The runway which is designed to easily accommodate the B-747 aircraft is 4,000 metres long and 60 meters wide, including shoulders. The airport layout design allows a second parallel runway within the site and the separation distance between the two runways will be 1,925 metres, allowing for safe runway operations.
Image: The airfield fire-fighters, called the Panthers, procured from Austria for security purposes.
The new airport also boasts of four airfield fire-fighters that have been procured from Austria. These crash fire vehicles, called the Panthers, have been procured for security purposes and a special capability for off road driving. They can go from 0 kmph to 80 kmph in less than 30 seconds.
These vehicles have a capacity of 12,500 litres of water and 1,500 litres of foam compound. The Panthers are also equipped with long-range monitors, fire-fighting equipment, infra red cameras and reverse cameras.
Authorities say that the airport shall provide protection corresponding to Aerodrome Category IX. This would meet the rescue requirement for airports where more than 700 movements of aircraft, the size of B-747, take place within the busiest consecutive three months of the year.
The response time shall not exceed two minutes to any part of the runway and three minutes to any part of the movement area in optimum visibility and surface conditions, the authorities claim.
Image: One of the baggage clearance spots at the glittering airport
Taking into consideration the security aspect at the airport, a boundary wall along the airport perimeter has been constructed. The airport also provides for three fully equipped ambulances, a cardiac response van, and a state-of-the-art rescue and incident control equipment.
The airport also boasts of facilities such as a retail centre, a multi-cuisine food court area, an adventure play area, and a day care facility for the children of the passengers. All these facilities are much needed as the existing HAL airport was nothing more than a waiting room with no facilities, barring a few eateries and a book stall.
The airport will also sport two mono brand stores at the international terminal. Watches at the Ethos watches outlet and Deepika Govind's designer wear will be part of the attraction. Foreign exchange services would be handled by Thomas Cook and TT Forex.
At the domestic terminal one would find Tommy Hilfiger, Odyssey's books, music, flower, and toy shops. There would also be host of eateries at the airport. There will be 35 check-in counters and seven passenger gates to facilitate multiple flights coming in at around the same time.
Flights: The first of the international flights to take off from the new airport will be the Air India flight to Singapore and Dubai. On the domestic circuit, both Bangalore-based airlines Kingfisher and SimplyFly Deccan was part of the pre-launch tests in the first week of March.
Requests have also made by Air India, Emirates and Singapore airlines to increase their frequency, while Oman Airlines has indicated that it would like to have at least six flights a week.
Image: The approach road leading to the new airport.
UDF and roads: No matter the amount of hype surrounding the airport, the two major problems that are going into eat into the time and pockets of the customers are the roads leading to the airport and also the User Development Fee.
The travel time to the new airport from the heart of the city during peak hours is at least three hours, thanks to the horribly managed traffic in Bengaluru!
With the metro rail link taking forever to come up, the only option for the passenger today is to reach the airport by road. There are also proposals by several airlines to introduce flights to the new airport which would take off at the old airport.
However, it does not seem feasible for the common man as he would have to shell out Rs 1,800 as air taxi fare. The airport company has said that it would have a stake in the metro line project to the airport. However, it seems it would take at least one more year to be ready.
Those who would be travelling by road would have to wait for the completion of the two-lane flyover. Once this comes up, things are expected to be smooth, as it would ensure easy passenger flow to the airport.
Second phase: Bengaluru International Airport Ltd is already making preparations for the second phase of the airport project. Once this is done, the complete cost of the airport would stand at Rs 2,500 crore (Rs 25 billion). Brunner says that the airport will cater to at least 10 million passengers in the first year of the operations.
He expects the traffic to grow by at least 30 per cent by 2010, thus making it necessary to expand. As part of the expansion plan, the second runway would come up. Additional counters too would be set up. Once the expansion is complete, there will be 54 counters for the passengers.
Naming the airport: Even as the Union government takes it own time in clearing the name 'Bengaluru' officially, this new airport has already been christened the 'Bengaluru International Airport.' Prior to christening the airport, several proposals had come in suggesting names. Kempe Gowda, the founder of Bengaluru; Sir M Visvesvaraya; Dr Rajakumar; and Tipu Sultan were the names which were proposed. However, the Karnataka government decided that naming it after the city would be most appropriate.
More Images:
Inside the Main Terminal
An overview
FEI officials during visit to BIAL