A commercially oriented machine, without heart or soul

A commercially oriented machine, without heart or soul Business sense

‘Small thinking has sunk in in the infrastructure at BIA’
Chairs in the international departure area are uncomfortable

BAD PLANNING: A view of departure lounge at Bengaluru International Airport.

Reading, day in, day out of the challenges facing Bangalore’s spanking new international airport, one begins to wonder whether proximity to a few hundred information technology companies might not have rubbed off on the airport as well, afflicting it with this high tech disease: instant obsolescence.

In normal circumstances, it would seem to be a fairly bizarre situation, when a new facility like an airport which is presumably planned by experts reaches the limit of its rated capacity on the very day it opens — or so we are told by the many committees that are bending their minds to the question: How do you solve a problem like BIA? Clearly it cannot be solved so smoothly as the problem like Maria, that enthralled us in our younger days in The Sound of Music.

Having passed through the airport a day after it was opened — and about half a dozen times since then, I emboldened to share with readers, my theory of why people continue to grumble and curse when talking about what should be the pride of India’s Silicon City. The issue is not a few overflowing trash cans, or leaky toilets or aerobridges with teething problems. All that can be changed. But attitude cannot.

I am coming round to the belief that the airport was conceived and executed by small minds, who either lacked the vision of what the mature, internationally savvy passengers who patronise the airlines serving Bangalore came to expect — or just decided that the interests of their shareholders would be best served by getting away with the narrowest definition of contractual responsibilities… and cutting every corner in sight.

Here are some examples: The pre-boarding waiting areas is where passengers, especially on international flights, tend to spend most of their time in airports — up to 2 hours is common. So world over, designers provide the most comfortable seating they can. The new Terminal 5 at Heathrow has invested in a number of corners with literally “sink in” sofas in which one can cacoon oneself in comfort. Incheon, Korea; Changi Singapore, the new Hong Kong airport on Lantau island, are all examples of thoughtful seating. But at BIA, they have standardised on a particularly hard and unyielding upright chair that will have you squirming within a few minutes. There are, in my experience, only two international airports worse in this respect — Bangkok’s Suvarnabhoomi, where they have gone all metal, and Frankfurt, that has created a unique torture instrument: a rounded metal bar on which one is expected to balance one’s posterior. Is this a German thing? BIA after all is part owned by Zurich Airport and that reputed name Siemens — both bywords for efficiency and quality. BIA is a poor showcase for your brand, mein damen und herrn.

Elsewhere, small thinking has sunk in — literally — into the infrastructure. You will be hard pressed to find smaller display boards for flight information, anywhere in the world. They have made do, with standard home theatre sized LCD TV screens, which cannot be read (at least by me) without spectacles. And at that size, they are unable to display enough lines and cannot show a departure that is just an hour away. This is a disgrace by any international standards. After a hue and cry about lack of public phones, they have stuck a few portable coin operated phones among the departure gates — the type your corner grocery store keeps on the counter.

This is the IT capital of India: It would have sent a splendid signal to the world, if arriving passengers found a few computer terminals with free Internet to check their mails. You can see them in Hong Kong, and in some 20 locations in Changi, Singapore — with two at every departure gate.

One could go on and on… Bangalore has waited for over a decade for a decent airport that measured up to the splendid image that its IT industry has created for India. What it has got is a cold, commercially oriented machine, without heart or soul. It may work — just — but it will never thrill. We deserved better.

ANAND PARTHASARATHY

© Copyright 2000 – 2008 The Hindu

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My personal observations :

Every business has a right to make a living and a duty to make a profit. At the same time, it has to balance financial needs with aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility and good customer service. I know the operational leaders at the new BIAL airport and they are good people and genuinely interested in meeting the needs of Bangalore both passenger and cargo. They realise the needs as raised by this article, but, I fear, they are being pushed to the wall by the financial promoters. It is all together possible that the storm over having two airports in Bangalore, has created the FUD factor (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), in the minds of the financial promoters, and they are looking to earn the maximum possible returns in the shortest possible time.

About Devesh Agarwal

A electronics and automotive product management, marketing and branding expert, he was awarded a silver medal at the Lockheed Martin innovation competition 2010. He is ranked 6th on Mashable's list of aviation pros on Twitter and in addition to Bangalore Aviation, he has contributed to leading publications like Aviation Week, Conde Nast Traveller India, The Economic Times, and The Mint (a Wall Street Journal content partner). He remains a frequent flier and shares the good, the bad, and the ugly about the Indian aviation industry without fear or favour.

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  1. (HAL days) returning from San Francisco, I overheard a passenger (american) look around the immigration area at HAL & exclaim “this is it?” His friend (who I think was no stranger to HAL) smiled and then talked about how a new airport was coming up.
    And I think all of us endured HAL because of the dream of BIAL.

    Isn’t it now ironical/amusing/sad that we want our HAL back? I am convinced that there is something in bangalore air that causes bad infrastructure. How else can you explain Swiss+German collaborators coming up short??

    The frenzy for retaining HAL as we approached the inauguration of BIAL must have set the promoters thinking.

    I think there are a lot of vested interests who want HAL re-opened for reasons that have nothing to do with passenger convenience, city planning etc but for their own personal gains.

    I think AAI/govt should re-assure BIAL but also get them to sign a SLA to ensure that the service is of international standards and then get busy constructing high-speed access to the airport.

  2. At last it is good see a realization in business circles that indeed “Open HAL” campaign is causing more harm than it benefits.

    Some how we have a bad habit of using the right tools for wrong causes. I wish we had instead filed PILs for better facilities at BIA rather than for stopping BIAL expansions/Openings, Demonstrated against GOK/GOI for their failures?

    In the end, AAI after approving the designs of airport, now certifies same designs as bad and inadequate?

  3. This PArthasarathy is one more Bangalorean with an inflated sense of the importance of Bangalore on the global stage.

    Comparing BIAL to Heathrow, Singapore, Seoul and Hong Kong – when even a child can see all of those handle tremendous transit traffic volumes and Bangaloare is a destination airport with zero transit traffic.

    This chap wants “sofas that he can sink into”? I guess this is actually an improvement over the “we want bigger toilets” tantrum.

    And this chaps manages to get his words into a newspaper! Why are newpapers not printing opinions of people like me who are entirely satisfied with BIAL? Is there any way for me to get heard in the media?

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