PRIVATE PROFIT

Saksar Sawasth Aur secular Haryana

UNDER-CAPACITY,

UNDER-CONNECTED




The new “world class” airport at Bengaluru (and the one in Hyderabad) were to have ushered in a golden era in civil aviation infrastructure in India. And the existing airports are to be closed.




The new Bengaluru airport, owned and being built by Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL), a consortium of companies led by Larsen and Toubro, with Zurich Airport as the collaborating partner, began in utter confusion and continues in the same vain. The initially planned capacity of 5 million passengers had to be hastily revised at the time of signing the agreement to 8 mppa gradually building up to 11 million mmpa by 2015, itself revised upward from 10.5 million by 2010 as per the original BIAL-commissioned study conducted by Lufthansa Consulting. But all the foreign corporates had got it completely wrong! The existing HAL Airport already handled over 10.5 million passengers in 2007! So, BIAL will be severely under-capacity on the very day it opens! BIAL’s projection is for 12 per cent annual traffic growth as against over 26 per cent witnessed in Bengaluru and nationwide. Bengaluru should have had capacity to handle 20-25 mmpa by 2015 latest, not only far exceeding current terminal capacities but easily exceeding even the maximum capacity of 17 million of the single runway which, incidentally, is not designed to handle the A-380 super jumbos likely to commence international operations in India next year.




The model of “clear and free” privatisation preferred by the government has meant a total disconnect between the airport itself and issues of connectivity, city-side facilities and urban planning which should be integral parts of planning airport infrastructure. An airport is not just a set of civil works to be dumped somewhere, leaving other aspects to take care of themselves. This is the main reason why most countries and cities prefer a state structure with built-in inter-agency collaboration while bringing in private players through different institutional mechanisms such as long-term leases or management contracts.


The new airport at Bengaluru is 35 km from the city centre to the north and 50 km from Electronics City and the IT hubs in the south, closer to the HAL airport. Travel time from the new airport is 1 hour to reach even the northern city limits, about 2:30 hours to the commercial district and 3:45 hours to the IT hub, not to mention additional delays that could be caused by the notorious Bengaluru traffic. International IT businessmen would do better flying in to Chennai and driving down from there in more or less the same time, and motoring between the metros would be more attractive than flying.

Despite these capacity and connectivity problems, the governments at the centre and in Karnataka, as well as BIAL, insist that the HAL airport be closed down. But BIAL at the same time wants HAL airport be used for helicopter or even jet shuttle services to the new airport so as to overcome connectivity problems! But only for business class passengers at a small charge of Rs 1500! A cruel joke indeed.


Contd