Two test flights land at Bangalore international airport

Two test flights of commercial aircraft landed successfully at the Bangalore international airport on Friday in the run-up to the formal launch of the airport by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on March 28.

A Kingfisher aircraft and an Air Deccan aircraft landed at the country’s first Greenfield airport located at Devanahalli, about 30 kms from Bangalore, with an interval of ten minutes on Friday.

A Kingfisher flight carrying media personnel and airlines executives from Mumbai touched down at the Bangalore International airport at 10.58 am on Friday. Exactly ten minutes later, an Air Deccan test flight, which took off from the HAL airport in Bangalore, landed at the international airport at 11.08 am.

Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) authorities said the take-off trials of commercial aircraft from the newly built international airport had been scheduled in the early hours of Saturday.

While the Kingfisher aircraft will take off to Mumbai at 12 midnight, the Air Deccan aircraft will depart at 12.30 am on Saturday. The take off trials will be preceded by flight tests on the new runway as well as the taxiway and the parking bays.

The test flights at the Bangalore International airport were conducted even as four Public Interest Litigations (PIL) were pending before the Karnataka High Court challenging the closure of the existing airport at HAL in Bangalore.

The petitioners had sought the retention of HAL airport for short haul domestic flights in view of connectivity problems to the newly built international airport, which is situated at a distance of 30 kms away.

A division bench of the High Court, which took up one of the petitions, adjourned the hearing to March 10 after BIAL contended that one of the terms of the agreement between the project promoters and the Federal Government was the closure of the HAL airport. If the old HAL airport is retained, the international airport’s financial viability will be jeopardized, BIAL counsel said.