Saturday, May 31, 2008

Bengaluru International Airport Limited - BIAL - a shame

I have traveled from the BIAL twice now and I am so thoroughly disappointed with what is the result of a >15 year wait, i think the citizens of bangalore have been cheated by government apathy, profiteering private enterprise who give a damn to the customers comfort.....here are my observations....

Good ones first :

  1. The road with all the media outcry is looking good.... there is still some work left in patches but it is in place. I live in south bangalore and its about 63 kms from where I live, so it seems like a mini picnic - it took me an hour to travel this distance, not in peak traffic ofcourse, that might take sometime more
  2. The look is that of a international airport.... suvarnabhumi, brussels , dubai - they look swank- this with the glass and open light looks so
  3. Unlike the old HAL airport, there is some space here.... but my concern is has someone thought of future - why didnt we think of a multi level parking in one shot?
  4. The aerobridges look cool
Now the cribs :

  1. They have very few toilets and hello , the whole damn place is water logged.... this is a new structure damn it, why cant we have a few more toilets......
  2. Who the hell is globe ground ? - BIAL says lufthansa has a stake and they are global partners who will provide international level ground handling - my foot - my flight landed at 12:30 yesterday night - after been delayed by an hour and then we waited for 20 mins in the plane since globe ground guys could not align the step ladder with the plane door - it took them 6 attempts. 4 guys were just pulling it back and trying to align it..... hello whatever happened to those tractors or vans which used to pull these around. Then we got down to find 2 buses for a plane full of people. Kingfisher, with its plush couches in buses has set the bar too high and here the same people were forced to pack people in as sardines. And then the heights they brought in Tempo travellers..... and then the driver gets confused and drops us off at a gate which is locked.....so here we have 4 elderly people, a lady with a bawling baby and another couple with 2 sleepy kids with other weary business travelers who probably have clocked a 18 hour day trying to catch someones attention to get the door opened.... and then trudge for 100 mts to sneak into another door... Look at what has happened - since one of the service providers messed up kingfisher and BIAL both ended up with a bad name.
  3. Business travelers need charging points for both a laptop and phone - hello people when u built a new airport, didnt any of those bright consultants tell you about this? holy cow.... AAI does better these days
  4. They have 10 gates which is good... but then hello you cant have me run around gate to gate trying to check where my flight is boarding - what happened to those tv screens which gave departure information? they have i think 2 or was it three....
  5. At 1:15 in the night, we tried getting out of the parking lot and they have one counter which is being run manually - so I was stuck behind 14 vehicles - 10 mins wasted.... can someone plz think of the value of my time at 1:30 in the morning?
There are lots more..... since I do like 2 flights a week, I will keep posting...Hopefully for my city, they will get their act better.....

Sad part, everyone who has come back from hyderbad says the airport is magnificent.... so here we lose out again. Congrats GMR, pity a Siemens , L&T, Zurich airport cant get it right!!!