Bangalore New International Airport

I recently visited the new airport in Bangalore, the Bengaluru International Airport. The airport, spread across approximately 4000 acres of land, is located around 40km away from the city centre of Bangalore. It was officially opened on May 24, 2008.

It was a brightly-litted, clean with a much better ambiance than the previous one. However, it was still short of modern class compare to the rest of the International airports in the major cities around Asia. For example, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Singapore and Bangkok. This airport lacked the decor and recreational facilities such as dining resturants, bars, coffee joints, etc for transiting passsengers to rest or arriving guests to make them want to stay longer. The same for the departure hall although the departure hall had more shops both before and after the immigration as compared to almost none in the old airport.

The customs clearance for arriving passengers were fast. It took us less than 10 minutes to clear despite the long queue. A significant improvement from the old airport. The officers were also friendly and helpful. The same was not to be said when departing. The security inspection began when you reached the airport before getting into the airport to the check-in counter. Then there was the custom clearance followed by another security check. Interestingly, there were different queue for male and female. Thus, bottleneck at the male queue. Then, as the bags passed through the scanner. There were metal detectors for the passengers followed by an inspection/search using handheld detectors. This check took us more than 30 minutes to get through.

Exterior of the new Bangalore Airport

Trolleys

Unmanned information counter

Bookshop outside Arrival gate

Information & direction sign

Cafe at Arrival Hall

In conclusion, it was a much improved airport from the aspect of facilities and cleanliness but short of the modern class. In my opinion, the nice structure lacked the human touch. The colonial bureaucracy was still reflected in the process and there was still significant room for improvement in efficiency to meet the standard of modern airport of today.