Bangalore International Airports Ltd (BIAL) is surrounded by turbulence even as the launch date (March 30) of its new airport at Devanahalli draws close.
BANGALORE: Bangalore International Airports Ltd (BIAL) is surrounded by turbulence even as the launch date (March 30) of its new airport at Devanahalli draws close.
Not only is the company likely to miss the flight to open its airport on time owing to lack of readiness of the air traffic control (ATC) system, but a rebellion from airlines is also building up against the user development fee (UDF).
In a letter shot off to BIAL chief executive officer Albert Brunner, the chairman of Airport Operators Committee, Bangalore, L F Tusing, has expressed unwillingness of airlines to pay the exorbitant UDF. Tusing’s letter says, “since the approval of the UDF is pending with the regulatory authority, the airlines will not participate in the process of collection of such fee from the passenger.”
BIAL has announced levy of UDF at Rs 675 plus taxes on domestic passengers and Rs 955 plus taxes on international passengers to provide and maintain higher infrastructure quality and safety. To ease the transition, the airport developer has reduced this fee to Rs 240 plus taxes for domestic passengers and Rs 520 plus taxes for international passengers.
Succumbing to pressure from airlines, GMR Hyderabad International Airport has completely done away with this charge on domestic passengers but has hiked it for international passengers.
Airlines want a similar relief from the BIAL till the new airport is properly connected to the city.
“As of now, we are charging our passengers as per the old (airport) rates. We want BIAL to forgo this charge in the initial period, till the connectivity (to the airport) issue is addressed,” said a senior budget-airline official.
BIAL has consistently maintained that it will not scrap the UDF. Ministry sources even revealed that the airport developer has threatened to back out of the project rather than relent on the issue.
Even as BIAL is grappling with the UDF issue, the civil aviation ministry is not very confident with its date of opening the new airport.
A civil aviation ministry spokesperson said on Monday that the inaugural date was
certainly being deferred because the Airports Authority of India (AAI) was not very comfortable with “certain technical issues.”
“The AAI has raised concerns over certain technical issues, which will certainly defer the launch of the new (Bangalore airport). We will be able to give the revised date of opening tomorrow,” said the ministry spokesperson.
Ministry sources said AAI was completely ready with ATC system, which was short of adequate personnel. As against the requirement of 80 air traffic controllers to launch full scale services, BIAL currently had just 25 personnel.
Besides, even though the ATC tower is ready the equipment (radars, instrument landing system, Visual Omni Range), that landed late, have not yet been installed.
“These cannot be installed before March 20,” said a source.
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