Swiss CEO of new Bangalore airport in race against time

BANGALORE: Swiss CEO Albert Brunner, whose nation takes pride in its clocks and watches, is racing against time to get a showpiece airport up and running in the hi-tech Indian city of Bangalore.   

April 2, 2008, is Brunner's deadline for Bangalore International Airport to receive and send off the first of the eight million passengers it expects to handle in its first year.    That is a date the chief executive of Bangalore International Airport Ltd., (BIAL) is determined to keep.   

If he succeeds, it will be a remarkable victory for a project conceived in 1991 but construction of which began only 14 years later after it was awarded in July 2005 to a consortium including Unique Zurich Airport, Siemens of Germany and Larsen  Toubro of India.   

The airport, expected to cost 500 million dollars, has been designed for 11 million passengers a year, up from the five million first envisaged, as traffic growth accelerated with an expanding economy.   

"It has been a race against time from day one," Brunner, 57, who previously worked on the two-billion-dollar Zurich airport expansion, said in an interview on the project site. "We have really had to struggle because we made it much bigger."   

India's airport infrastructure is in terrible shape, as any passenger can testify in a country where landing at the Delhi or Bangalore airports may be preceded by two hours circling before a pilot finds parking space.   

Congestion is growing at airports as low-cost airlines proliferate to take advantage of train travellers upgrading from the state-run train network. "The deadline is tight," conceded Brunner, who spent almost as long on negotiating the project as the three years he undertook to build the airport in. "But we want to show it can be done so we didn't shift the date."   

Brunner, chosen to head the 4,050-acre project because of a reputation for patience, may just pull it off. Six thousand workers are working day and night seven days a week, he said, to ensure the deadline is kept in a nation where large projects routinely overrun by years, even decades.  By Thursday, 77 percent of the work on the airport being built in Devanahalli, 35 kilometres from Bangalore, was complete, Brunner said.   

The roof, front and back glass facade and the side walls of the terminal building are completed, as is the paving of the four-kilometre runway. Seven of the eight bridges between the building and the apron are also done.  A four-lane approach road is being constructed from the highway to the airport. A fuel depot and cargo handling complex are being built at an additional cost of 173 million dollars for which concessionaires have to pay.   

All concessionaires have been selected, said Brunner, who has been living away from his wife and 14-year-old son while he executes the project. The concessionaires include Indian Oil and Skytanking to provide aviation fuel, and GlobeGround India and Air India plus Singapore Airport Terminal Services to cater to ground handling and LSG Sky Chefs and Taj SATS to compete for the food and beverage business. 

"We want to make sure there's competition," Brunner said. "We want a clean, efficient, passenger-friendly and professional airport.  Passengers will be able to walk out of the airport and check into the Trident Hotel being built opposite by the Oberoi Hotel chain.   

The Bangalore International Airport will apply for a licence by the end of September and start initial trials of systems such as baggage handling and X-ray screening the following month, said Brunner. "We try hard to keep our reputation as timekeepers of the world," he said.