Bengaluru Airport’s shifting of International operations from T1 to T2 was aborted just hours before the shift was to take place last week. The roll back is embarrassing after making news for long and even stating which will be the first flight to operate from T2 – International. The exact reasons for the last minute change have been kept under the wraps and decision based on joint agreement of the preparedness committee. This adds to the multiple such embarrassments which Bengaluru Airport has seen since inception fifteen years ago.
The greenfield airport opened to a near saturation point. This was followed by a need to close the airport for multiple hours a day in 2012 for emergency runway repairs, an event which repeated itself in 2017 – for the same runway. Between changing owners and expanding traffic, the airport made headway with expansion of the terminal along with the apron – leading to long travel time from the aircraft to the terminal and vice versa due to paucity of contact gates. Until recently, the shallow morning fog was an issue due to lack of Cat III ILS.
The airport went into an overdrive about five years ago, expanding with the second runway, followed by the second terminal dubbed the Garden Terminal. When everything looked good came the last minute change. The last few years has seen Bengaluru attract new airlines, new routes and even marquee aircraft on scheduled service like the A380 but a city which produces software for the world, could have done well with better project management for the shift.
Not all lies in the hands of the airport operator, with agencies like Customs, Immigration and BCAS under various ministries of the government but all in all a last minute change is an indication that few things were left to be attended to till the last minute which did not go well and gives rise to the speculation that the terminal was inaugurated in a haste, with the shifting too planned as such. Worldover, airports have rolled back shifting and a delay is a regular phenomenon. As India aims high, this is one area where it would have been nice to not be part of such a list.
Bengaluru is not the only case. I recently read an article which talked about shifting of operations from Rajkot to Hirasar. The article mentioned that Rajkot will be without operations for one whole day because this time will be utilised to move the equipment from Rajkot Airport to Hirasar Airport. Back in 2008, there was a seamless shift from HAL airport to BIAL and Begumpet airport to GHIAL at midnight. Rajkot isn’t even operational 24×7!
We are the third largest domestic market in the world in aviation and climbing steps with more planes, more airports and more traffic. We are slowly replacing China in some tourist markets or competing strongly with Chinese in terms of numbers and these slips in infrastructure can well be avoided. It’s time we up our game!
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