BIAL - Thumbs down??

As Bangaloreans get their first taste of their new airport, most have been dazzled by the glitz and size; and comparisons are being made with the best airports in the world, something that any self respecting business traveller will scoff at.

And if anything, its just a matter of time before people start pulling the wool from their eyes - BIAL staff and Herr Brunner better have an escape plan then, and considering the way the 'completed' airport has been functioning, preferably something that doesn't involve them flying from their own airport.

The closure of HAL is a very very bad idea - the old airport was quite efficient, especially in its upgraded avatar. Entry was a problem, and there wasn't enough space, but it did have enough to easily handle 7 million passengers a year. Why then can the much bigger BIAL handle only 11 million? Where has our 3500 crores gone? Why has the, terminal whose size was only increased by 27%, claim to handle 300% more travellers? The Math on this seems wrong, doesn't it?

I give it a month or two before people start asking whats so great about the new airport. The Cargo terminal is nowhere near ready, ground handling is a mess, and the User Fee is astronomical. And if the problems aren't fixed within a month, there will be trouble in the air, and not just from Kannada activists, who justifiably have asked for the airport to be named after the founder of the city. It won't just be the IT guys, who were idiotic enough to support the great white elephant without reading the fine print (Educated people, Bah!!) and selfish enough to cheer on when their hero, the great Narayana Murthy helped negotiate the agreement that gave Brunner and Co. 150 km of free air, and 80 lakh Bangaloreans a whipping in the behind.

It will be every single traveller, who has to pay 700 for a Taxi, 1000 for the UDF and endure a horrendous airport experience in return. It will be common Bangaloreans, who will lose almost 10,000 crore Rs. because the Cargo terminal isn't ready and the government was a coward to protest. It will be the airlines staff, who don't have offices of their own or toilets or drinking water. And it will be the people who lost their lands and jobs to the new airport and were cheated out of employment because BIAL doesn't care about local sentiments. In short, everyone!

But right now, its still the honeymoon phase, where the passengers can walk through an airport that has no ugly ducts and a central A/C that actually works. Of course, there are a few voices of sense and foreboding in this madness - its a pity that no one in the positions to do something actually listens to them.

Devesh Agarwalji, the head of the Bangalore Chamber of Infrastructure and Commerce, and one of the strident voices of sense has a blog that demolishes any rosy reports in the paper - BIAL is no Changi, and it is far from complete, and nowhere near efficient or excellent. Check it out at http://aviation.deveshagarwal.com.

Lets hope the new BJP Government has some sense in its head, and makes the right decisions. Till then, keep your motorbike well oiled and fuelled, Mr. Brunner - you may need to make a quick dash to HAL airport to catch a chartered flight.