HAL Bangalore International Airport - Overview

Overview

HAL was established as Hindustan Aircraft in Bangalore in 1940 by Walchand Hirachand to produce military aircraft for the Royal Indian Air Force. The initiative was actively encouraged by the Kingdom of Mysore, especially by Diwan Sir Mirza Ismail. The British Government bought a one-third stake in the company by April 1941 as it believed this to be a strategic imperative. Later in April 1942, it bought out the stakes of Walchand Hirachand himself and other promoters so that it can act freely.

In 1964, it was acquired by the Government and was used mainly for defence purposes, operations were extended for domestic commercial flights in the 1980s while the airport started to serve international destinations in 1997. In the past decade, the airport has gone through a series of expansions and upgrades to keep pace with the growing civilian air traffic in the city. While the rated capacity of the airport was 3.6 million passengers per year it was last operating at a super saturated level of 7.5 million. Reportedly HAL requested airlines to discontinue the addition of flights to and from Bangalore some time ago.

In the mid 1990s, friction started to arise between the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and HAL. AAI wanted more control over airport management which HAL refused, citing national security concerns. The HAL airport is the site of much of HAL's test and research facility. Currently, more than 50% of the Indian Air Force fleet consists of aircraft manufactured by HAL. The airport's management issue also caused contention between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Thus turf wars may have been the major problem, and not over-riding operational factors. In 2005, a private consortium, Bangalore International Airport Limited, (BIAL), in which AAI was a minority shareholder, finally started construction on the new Bengaluru International Airport. Now completed and commissioned, BIAL has replaced HAL airport as Bangalore's international and domestic airport, while HAL airport will serve only as a test and research facility for HAL. The new airport is about 35 km (22 mi) from Bangalore and a new 6-lane highway has being built to access it. Travel time can be up to 3 hours from the southern parts of the city. Hence low cost airlines are making strong representations to the Civil Aviation Minister to let them continue to use the more conveniently located HAL airport despite the contractual obligation to close down the airport's civil enclave.