Bengaluru International Airport set to take off

Bangalore: The much-delayed, debated and dramatised Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) will finally take wing with the first commercial flight scheduled to take off in the first five minutes of May 24.
The first take-off will also signal a decisive shift in commercial operations from HAL Airport to the new airport.
The BIA, which was decades ago conceived as the country’s first green field airport, will see the first flight touch down at 9:45 pm on May 23 and the first flight take off at 12:05 am on May 24.
Jet Airways’s flight 9W 477 from Mumbai will be the first flight to touch down at the airport, signalling a shift from the existing HAL airport to the BIA. According to its promoters, the Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL), the commissioning of the airport will take place at 12:05 am with Air India’s flight IC 957 departing to Singapore.
The landing and departure of all flights after 12:05 am on May 24 will take place at the BIA. Flight departures from Bangalore before 11.59 pm on May 23 will take place at HAL airport. But, for a flight making a stopover in Bangalore and then taking off for a further destination, it will be BIA.
BIAL has announced that the first passenger of IC 957 to Singapore will receive his/her boarding card at 9 pm.
“The transition is expected to be a smooth affair, with BIA following the same flight schedules of HAL. The first international flight that will take off at the BIA runway is a Air India jet IC 957 from Bangalore to Singapore at exactly 12:05 am, while an Air France jet will make a touch down at the same time from Paris to Bangalore, “ said a BIAL Official.
The commissioning of the airport which was scheduled to take place on May 23 midnight, was put off by 24 hours, following last minute instructions by the Election Commission citing the third and final phase of polling on Thursday.
23/04/08 Deccan Herald

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Categories: Airports May 2008, New May 2008