Fly or Cry?

Bangalore International Airport (BIA) now announces everyday flights to Singapore,New York, Greece and Pain.

That is what the new announcements should be saying soon. Bangalore Govt decides to open a new world class airport. Very Good. Bangalore Govt decides to start daily flights connecting Bangalore and India to various countries of the world. Excellent. Bangalore Govt decides to shut down HAL airport.Wrong move. Bangalore Govt...What Bangalore Govt? Bangalore doesnt have a govt anymore. WTF?!

But what I fail to understand is the logic behind the government deciding to move all operations from HAL airport to the new BIA. This is probably another classic case of the human race progressing but our esteemed indian politicians regressing. Why in heavens name would I travel 3 hours to travel 35kms so that I can catch a flight that takes 1 hr to travel 900kms?

People moved their mode of travel from rail to air not just because the fares had come down but also because it was much more convenient in terms of time taken to reach point A to B. Now with the time factor becoming comparable once again I would rather take the train. Let me put it in perspective :

Scenario A: Business Analyst Tanya Dhurai who works for Sinfosis has to travel to Hyderabad for a client meeting on 16th Jan. Her flight by Queenfisher Airlines from the HAL airport is scheduled for departure at 1900hrs. She also has to attend a meeting with her tech team at 1600hrs which would last for approximately 30mins. So she attends her tech team meeting at 1600hrs, leaves office at 1645hrs. Takes a cab to the airport and reaches the airport at 1730hrs, checks in, goes through the security check and boards the flight at 1800hrs.

Scenario B: Business Analyst Tanya Dhurai who works for Sinfosis has to travel to Hyderabad for a client meeting on 3rd April. Her flight by Queenfisher Airlines from the Bangalore International Airport is scheduled for departure at 1900hrs. She also has to attend a meeting with her tech team at 1600hrs which would last for approximately 30mins. So she attends her tech team meeting at 1600hrs, leaves office at 1645hrs. Takes a cab to the airport and reaches the airport at 2000hrs,cant check in, and cant do anything but go back, because the flight has already reached Hyderabad.

So if you have to reach the new BIA from the Infosys campus, it takes you a good 3-3.5hrs. Add to that another half hour for check-in, security check and boarding. SO that makes it 4 hrs. So at the barest minimum I have to spare a good 4 hrs to take a damned flight. There is no direct flight between two cities in India that takes more than 2.5-3 hrs.

While on the airport talk, BIA was earlier scheduled to be fully functional in 2015. Then the Bangalore govt (?) wanted to speed up things and directed them to make it fully operational by 2010. And now the buzz is that its scheduled to open on April 2, 2008. How are they managing something like that? I mean come on, this is not how we politicians function. We are supposed to delay the process, make a few extra, sorry, make a lot of extra bucks, stall some more, raise objections,set up a dharna so as to enable the local corporator who is related to the wife's cousin's chacha's daughter's milkman can also make some dough. So it is quite surprising to see something this far ahead of schedule. I won't be surprised if there is some conspiracy behind this and one day we hear of the BIA collapsing due to weak infra. Yes, I am a cynic.

On the other hand we have the Hyderabad International Airport which is coming up 30kms from the city centre too, but the access to which is being tackled proactively in the form of a new expressway which makes your journey to the airport a matter of a 45min drive. Inspite of which they havent yet decided to shut down the airport currently being used, though talks are still on.

Anyways, I have booked my train ticket to and from Bangalore. I hope you have too.