The Hindu Business Line : BIAL says situation is improving

Bangalore International Airport Ltd that began operating the city’s new airport on May 24 says it is progressively ironing out the early glitches on ground.

“The situation is now coming more and more under control. After six days of operations of the new Bengaluru International Airport, we can already gauge the improvements with each passing day,” BIAL said in response to queries from Business Line. “Please bear with us in the start-up phase” as things were looking up and the processes getting better.

Special task force

Its special task force has diagnosed the problem points, getting passenger feedback and addressing the hassles. “In our case, the issues arose due to some of our service providers having inadequate number of staff, inadequate supervision and not enough equipment… We will constantly be trying to increase efficiency, speed and elevate the passenger experience,” it said. Some of the other greenfield airports across the world, too, have had far more serious problems such as months’ delay, inability to handle flight traffic and huge baggage loss.

Flight schedules

On flight schedules getting upset, the company said there were delays in the first few days for various reasons. But no delay was reported due to the failure of the infrastructure at the airport (BIA). Also, the performance of an airport cannot be measured entirely against delayed departures or arrivals.

“The reasons for flight delays can be many, including delayed departures from the origin of the aircraft, weather conditions, etc. BIAL has taken this up. The performance has improved every day.”

On Day 5, Wednesday morning, for instance, the first domestic peak wave was handled without delay and the second wave saw minor delays. On an average, most of the flights that arrived on time also departed BIA on schedule.