Bengaluru airport to get 2nd runway; flights to land on Oct 1

Bengaluru, Jan 11: The Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru will become the first airport in southern India to have a second runway. The parallel runway construction at Kempegowda will be finished by the end of September 2019. The airport will see the first commercial flight to land on a brand new, fully equipped runway on October 1. With this, fog delays will be history soon, as the airport will also upgrade its existing runway once the new facility stabilises.

The new terminal T2 will be built in two phases. The first phase will have 25 million passenger capacity. The second runway will be four kilometre long and equipped with CAT III B to prevent flight delay.

The new terminal will be environment-friendly and will adhere to the 'The city of gardens' image of Bengaluru. The terminal building will have lush green cover with trees specific to the city.

The total construction cost of the project will be Rs 13,000 crore. The airport will also have a metro connectivity in the near future.

The airport has been ranked the world's second fastest growing airport with 26% ownership, equally held by the state and central governments and the rest 74% owned by Fairfax (54%) and Siemens (20%).

India's total passenger traffic rose about 16.5 % in 2017-2018 to nearly 309 million, according to the Airports Authority of India, making it one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets. Boeing Co expects the country to become the third-largest commercial aviation market by the early 2020s.