New Bangalore Airport Takeoff After May 10

Times News Network

Bangalore, Mar 14: The commissioning of Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) is likely to be decided on political considerations more than anything else. The Centre, on Thursday, officially communicated to Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) to consider an opening date after May 10. With assembly elections in Karnataka round the corner, state Congress leaders are believed to pressurise the Centre to fix an opening date after the polls.

Stating that facilities within the ATC tower are not complete, the Centre has dashed off a letter directing BIAL to “consider a suitable date after May 10 for the airport opening’’. The earlier inauguration date for BIA was March 30. “As ATC services will not be available by March 30, the date has to be put off,’’ the letter said. 

Earlier this week, the civil aviation ministry said the opening of airport would be put off by four weeks. By that reckoning, the commissioning of BIA should have been fixed for the last week of April. With Centre preferring to open after May 10, it is pretty clear that airport will be commissioned close to the assembly elections. 

Now, the civil aviation ministry points out that construction of ATC facilities — control tower, technical block, office accommodation of AAI personnel and issues like electricity supply, house-keeping, air-conditioning — prompted it to ask the BIAL to fix a date after May 10. 

All central government agencies responsible for the performance of key functions at the airport had confirmed their readiness for March 30, but the Airports Authority of India expressed reservations about ATC being ready by that date. 
Sources in the civil aviation ministry said the decision to postpone the date was taken last Friday, when flights underwent trial runs at BIA.

Airport staff call off strike

Bangalore: The ‘non-cooperation movement’ by Airport Authority Employees’ Joint Forum has been called off. Employees’ forum general secretary Stanly Sampath Kumar told ‘The Times of India’ the movement was called off from Thursday, 7 pm, following assurances from civil aviation minister Praful Patel. All the employees have agreed to attend office from Friday. 

Patel, besides assuring the forum that their interest would be protected, also promised the employees they would be involved in future decisions taken by the ministry. The employees’ main demand was to continue operations of existing airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The non-cooperation movement started from Tuesday mid-night. 

Despite the strike till Thursday evening, flights schedules remained normal in Bangalore, Mangalore and Hubli airports.