No new international flights to B'lore for 5 months

NOT FLYING HIGH: The ministry has asked that the existing HAL airport to continue handling commercial operations.

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Keywords: Internatinal Flights, Bangalore Intenational Airport

Bangalore: The Civil Aviation ministry has decided to defer the launch of the Bangalore International Airport from the end of this month to May 4, which means Bangalore may not have any new international flights added to its existing schedule for the next five months.

The ministry has asked that the existing HAL airport to continue handling commercial operations, which means the summer schedules of international airlines for the next five months, which are normally submitted in the first week of April, will now be approved by HAL based on its capacity instead of BIAL (Bengaluru International Airport Ltd).

But HAL is already running on full capacity and cannot accept any new flights on its schedule, and even though the new airport can handle 720 flights a day, compared to the 400 of the old airport, it will have to follow the existing schedule until September.

Several airlines including Air India, British Airways, Air France, Thai Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Gulf Air and Sri Lankan Airlines had expressed interest in increasing the frequency of their flights to Bangalore when the new airport opened.

But now, unless BIAL presents them with a contingency plan for the delayed launch — all flights will have to wait until the winter schedules are drawn up in September.