BIA users worried over higher costs for services

Bangalore: Bangalore’s new airport, Bengaluru International Airport (BIA), is ready to take off on May 11 but neither the airlines nor the travellers seem excited or enthused about using the city’s biggest and most prestigious infrastructure showpiece.
Their agony is over the higher cost they would pay on all fronts to what one called “a new private-sector monopoly”; and in some cases, 30 per cent royalty to the sub-concessionaires for virtually every requirement at the airport.
The passengers’ load will rise immediately with the user development fee (domestic Rs 650/international Rs 950) in addition to the Rs 225 they now pay at HAL airport as passenger service; and the cost of transiting almost 3-4 times longer from most points to Devanahalli, 40 km away.
The operator, Bangalore International Airport Ltd, has halved the user fee for two months while the Ministry of Civil Aviation has suggested a lower domestic levy. BIAL’s CEO, Mr Albert Brunner, had earlier justified the levy; the promoters after all had to recover their costs, having invested nearly Rs 2,500 crore in the first phase, he had said.
The airlines, for now, are not going to be too badly off by the transition; they have struck fair deals for themselves on ground handling. They also got the operator to keep the same landing and parking fees as at HAL airport. But BIAL may raise the landing fees in six months.
18/03/08 Business Line

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Categories: Airports Mar 2008, New Mar 2008