VIEWS:
In the years following the liberalisation of the Indian aviation sector, a number of private airlines emerged on the scene beginning in the mid 1990s. This led to a rapid growth air traffic through the major cities including Bangalore where civil flights operated through Bangalore airport that was jointly managed by two other agencies namely the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and the Indian Air Force. As the space available at HAL airport for operations of civil flights was extremely limited and there was no scope for expansion, it reached saturation point very soon. It was clear that in the context of the rapid growth of civil air traffic, the civil enclave at HAL airport was inadequate and the city needed a much larger airport to be used exclusively for civil flights. Thus it was that a new international airport at Devanhalli was sanctioned by the Government, fortunately without any dithering and delay. Construction of the airport, now known as Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), commenced in July 2005 and the airport with one runway, was operational in May 2008, in less than three years at a total cost of 1,930 crore. It was a remarkable achievement indeed especially in terms of time frame!

KIA was initially designed to handle 4.5 million passengers; but by the time construction began, the anticipated traffic had risen to 6.7 million. Thus the necessary changes in design were made and when KIA was commissioned in 2008, it had the capacity to handle 11 million passengers annually. KIA was the third airport in India to be built under the Public Private Partnership programme of the Government.

Having made the new runway operational, Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), the company in charge of the management of KIA, has a number of plans to upgrade and enhance the capability of the airport through other programmes under the 13,000 crore expansion plans that are underway. Apart from strengthening and upgrade of the existing runway, taxiways, tarmac for parking of aircraft and development of new facilities/associated infrastructure, the most notable item on the list is to upgrade the capability of the old runway in use since May 2008, to CAT III standard which will enable it to operate flights in very low visibility conditions and to be on par with the new South runway. A Request for Proposal has already been issued for the installation, testing and commissioning of Cat-III system for the old runway. However, this work will entail closure of the runway to operations up to at least the end of the current year by which time the upgrade of capability to CAT III standard is expected to be completed. However, unlike in 2017 when large scale repair work on the runway and taxiways was undertaken, this time around, there would be no impact on airport operations as flights can be conveniently diverted to the new South runway.

Alongside the new South runway, KIA is to get the second terminal as well, located on the Southern side of the new South runway. This new terminal will enhance the passenger handling capacity of the airport by another 25 million per annum. In 2018-19, the KIA had handled well over 33 million passengers, maintaining its position as the country’s third busiest airport.

But the ambitions of the people of Karnataka do not seem to rest here and for good reason. There is now a clamour for the third runway at KIA for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the annual air passenger traffic through KIA is expected to cross 75 million in not too distant a future. The rate at which passenger traffic through KIA has been growing in recent years, the figure of 75 million could well be reached by 2025. A written request for the third runway at KIA has been projected to the Government of Karnataka by the Bangalore Political Action Committee (BPAC) headed by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson and Managing Director of Biocon Limited who the President of BPAC and T.V. Mohandas Pai, the Vice President who is the Chairman of Manipal Global Education, Manipal University.

The letter to the Karnataka Government by the luminaries from BPAC highlights the recent study released by Airports Council International that ranks KIA as one of the fastest growing international airports in the country and hence it is imperative to plan for a third runway to cope with the growing air traffic. It also emphasises that given the rapidly growing air traffic, KIA will need to have two runways operational all the time and the availability of a third runway will ensure that the operational efficiency of KIA is never compromised.