India: Bengaluru airport readies new terminal as air travel explodes

Bengaluru’s international airport is expecting passenger traffic to surge nearly 70% in an expansion over the next two years as multinational companies pour money into the city known as the Silicon Valley of India. Airport authorities laid out plans on Thursday for a nearly $2b investment that will add a new terminal and a second runway, boosting the airport’s capacity to 45m passengers per year. The population of south India’s biggest city has more than doubled since the turn of the century as banks, IT consultancies and startups set up bases, concreting over a city of trees, bungalows and lakes once favoured by the country’s retirees. The Kempegowda International Airport, already the third busiest in India with 27m passengers in 2017-18, is expecting traffic to triple in the next 10 years, said Hari Marar, the CEO of the airport. “We will be as big as Heathrow is today,” Marar said. Along with a new terminal, Bangalore International Airport Ltd is also nearing completion of a second runway, capable of handling Airbus’s A380s and operating in near zero visibility.<br/>