The Hindu Business Line : Doubts over Bangalore airport launch date

Bangalore’s new airport may not keep its date of opening on March 30 thanks to an air-pocket it has hit over meeting a crucial air traffic control (ATC) norm.

Officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation who visited the site on Friday said the launch date would be decided in a day or two after meetings are held in the Capital.

“Right now, March 30 is not still the absolute date,” Mr Ashok Chawla, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, told Business Line in Bangalore. “We have still not taken a final view on that and need to have a clear picture. We may take a decision in two-three days after further discussions in Delhi.”

Mr Chawla, along with the Director-General of Civil Aviation, the AAI chief and other officials were in the city for two days to study the onsite and connectivity issues to Devanahalli, 35 km away.

ATC issue

In the worst-case scenario, the opening of the new airport could face a delay of up to one month, one source said.

Mr Chawla admitted that the ATC issue was the main factor in reviewing the launch date. If there was a need to postpone the airport’s launch, the Government would try and sort out the matter as early as possible, so that the plans of the airport developers is not affected, while also ensuring that all regulations for opening a new airport are met, the Secretary said.

The new airport being developed by the Siemens-Unique Zurich Airport-L&T consortium is yet to receive the operator’s licence. For that, the Director-General of Civil Aviation has given the developer, Bangalore International Airport Ltd, a list of 59 items for compliance and will take a call on March 20, Mr Chawla said. A dozen of them still need to be met with.

Problems

At the new airport, the ATC, along with CNS (communication and navigation services) will be handled by the Airports Authority of India, at the moment this is being done by HAL staff.

Sources familiar with the progress of the new airport said the imported ATC equipment and radar landed only in February, almost three months late. The delayed arrival has given AAI staff little time for onsite familiarisation. They need on-site familiarisation of up to four weeks to test, calibrate and synchronise their equipment. The instruments need to be kept in 42-day (1,000-hour) “hot stand-by” mode before the airport can be operationalised.

General view is that both these cannot be achieved by March 30. Only on Friday, BIAL had demonstrated its readiness by handling the trial landings and take-offs of six aircraft in various modes. Asked about the ATC issue, the BIAL CEO, Mr Albert Brunner, said BIAL was only the operator and ATC did not fall in its ambit.

AAI is in the process of deploying some 300 air traffic controllers from its other centres to Devanahalli.

USER FEE

Mr Chawla said there would be no going back on closing down the nearly 50-year-old HAL airport once the new one begins operations at Devanahalli. The user fee is the other public concern. He said this, too, is inevitable, though the Ministry would try to keep the amount as reasonable as possible for departing passengers, without compromising the business model of BIAL.

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