Demand for retaining Bangalore’s old airport intensifies

The primary reason behind the demand is the traffic congestion being predicted en route to the new airport, located 37 km away from the heart of the city, in the absence of a smooth access route. Several well-known industry and public-private partnership initiative leaders, working under the Bangalore Connect umbrella, have held meetings over the last few days to come up with plans to convince the Government to retain the HAL airport.

The meetings attended by senior members from the Confederation of Indian Industries, Biocon, Infosys and Bosch have decided to approach the Government again with the plea to allow some domestic flights to operate from the existing airport within the city.

“There is a widespread feeling that the existing airport must be allowed to stay open until accessibility problem to the new airport is sorted out,” Biocon MD Kiran Shaw said.

The state infrastructure department, the coordinating partners for the international airport project on the Government side, has, however, ruled out the possibility of the HAL airport remaining open by citing a contract clause that specifies no airport can be allowed to compete in a 150-km range of the new airport.

Industry leaders received support this week from the chairman of the Karnataka Legislative Council, B K Chandrashekhar. “Travelling time and high user development fee proposed by the international airport at Devanahalli will jeopardise the interests of domestic travellers,” he said.

As was seen in Hyderabad, employees of the Airports Authority Employees Union (AAEU) here have also risen in protest against the shifting of the airport to a new international facility. The AAEU have already staged a hunger strike at the HAL airport demanding the retention of the airport and have threatened to intensify their protests in case their demand is not met.

“We are not against the opening of the international airport, which is necessary to de-congest the present airport, but closing this airport when the new airport starts is uncalled for. Allowing only one private airport to function means that the Government is encouraging privatisation,” said AAEU convener Stanley Sampath Kumar.

A local advocate G R Mohan has, meanwhile, filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court, seeking a direction to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) to retain the HAL airport for short-haul domestic flights.

The petitioner has argued that passengers will be forced to travel fro longer time periods to get to the new airport even for short duration flights. The petition, ordered for posting as a PIL, also seeks a stay on the proposed user development fee of Rs 675 on domestic passengers and Rs 955 on international passengers at the new airport.

The existing HAL airport earns an annual profit of Rs 270 crore for HAL and Rs 250 crore for the Airports Authority of India (AAI), but is not in a position to serve the burgeoning air traffic situation in Bangalore.

Efforts to create smooth connectivity to the new airport, including a new dedicated expressway and a metro rail connection, are still on the drawing board, while short-term solutions like improvement of existing road connections and are in a time lag of at least three months when compared to the date of the opening of the new airport.