The Hindu Business Line : BIAL picks LSG, Taj SATS for flight catering

LSG Sky Chefs (I) Pvt Ltd and Taj SATS Catering Ltd have been chosen to be the flight caterers for the Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), the airport company said on Thursday.

The two were picked from among nine bidding consortia, Bangalore International Airport Ltd, which is building the Rs 1,900-crore greenfield airport at Devanahalli near here.

Gate Gourmet/ Ambassador's Sky Chef has been ranked third. "BIAL will ask the first two parties to match its turnover fee proposal... In case the agreements cannot be concluded with the two first ranked parties in a reasonable time, BIAL will take up negotiations with the third ranked party," it said.

LSG Sky Chefs is a subsidiary of the German catering major LSG Lufthansa Service Holding GmbH. For SATS (Singapore Airport Terminal Services), which has teamed up with the Tata group-owned Taj, catering would be the second foothold at BIA; SATS, along with Air India, is also one of its two cargo operators.

The other qualifying bidders for catering included Alpha Group, Oberoi Flight Services and Sky Gourmet.

The airport company has so far finalised operators for four categories of airport services, though it is awaiting the Ministry of Civil Aviation's ground handling guidelines for naming its two ground handling agencies. The aviation fuel supply and cargo operators were firmed up in the past two months.

BIAL has said it plans to finalise the remaining operators through tenders by 2007, in time for the airport's launch in April 2008.