Where will we finally land............

The delay in opening of the BIAL has only given more time for the debate on whether to close the HAL airport or not to continue. It is surprising that this question has cropped up and is being debated publicly a few months before the opening of BIAL when the decision to close the HAL airport and make BIAL the only airport in Bangalore was take a few years back.

The most common reason cited by people who are fighting to keep the HAL airport is the lack of infrastructure and the difficulty in getting to BIAL. It is not a case of Devanhalli or BIAL becoming farther to the city in the last few months... the distance has been the same since the time construction on BIAL began. The NGOs, airline companies, frequent flier, businessmen who are now against the closure of HAL airport could have fought from the past few years to put the right infrastructure in place. Instead of filing a PIL now, instead of having website surveys now, instead of having online petitions now... the same people could have taken some actions earlier to force the government to create quality infrastructure to get to the airport.

Be that as it may, the ground reality is that we don’t have quality infrastructure in place to ensure that we get to BIAL in a reasonable time. It needs to be acknowledged that it could take nearly 3 hours to get the airport from areas such as JP Nagar, Electronic City, Bannergatta Road, Rajarajeshwari nagar, etc. The other reasons given to keep the HAL airport open are the feasibility of Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) operating from BIAL, the infrastructure at HAL airport being rendered redundant, the revenue loss for HAL!

Understandably, BIAL is against keeping the HAL airport open since closing of the HAL airport is one of the terms and conditions of the agreement signed by the Government. Also, I understand that BIAL's under development fees and other revenue calculations are based on the assumption that BIAL will be the only operational airport for commercial and cargo flights.

In my view, the arguments of LCCs making losses and HAL losing out on revenue are not worth considering. When somebody is running a business and there are some external factors (including government policies) which make the business less profitable… I don’t think the businessman can cry foul… instead he would need to come up with creative solutions to stay in business. I don’t think HAL airport can be kept open so that LCCs can break even nor can it kept open to ensure that HAL makes the Rs 300 crores that it has been earning annually.

As regards, the other reasons for keeping the HAL airport open ie BIAL rendering the infrastructure at HAL redundant; it may be worth while to examine the option of making the HAL airport an airport which is open for charter aircrafts. We have a lot of companies which now want to get into the business of providing charter aircrafts. Further, the HAL airport can be used by companies owning small aircrafts to offer pick-up and drop services to BIAL. There are many ways of using up the infrastructure created at HAL airport.


Now I come to the last reason and strongest reason for keeping the HAL airport open which is the lack of quality infrastructure to get to BIAL. I think this is a fair ask. But the government is also required to adhere to the agreement with BIAL. Hence, there is a requirement to balance the two.

In my view, the best way to achieve this would be to keep the HAL airport open only till the road to BIAL gets ready and for HAL to enter into a revenue sharing agreement with BIAL for the said period. The revenue share would ensure that BIAL is not worse off by letting HAL operate the airport, HAL would also not be worse off since it makes some money and the public at large would also not be worse off. I think this could possibly be a solution acceptable to all.

The most important reason why I am against keeping the HAL airport open is as long as we have the HAL airport open, the work on the road to BIAL will never be done on fast track. We react in panic situations well.

A classic example of what I am stating above is BIAL itself…. If the HAL airport had not reached its full capacity… I don’t think Bengaluru would have ever had a swanky new international airport in such short time… we would have managed to continue with the HAL airport!!!