Starting Thursday, the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru will commence the operations for its second runway, along with its existing runway. The second runway, which is termed the ‘new south parallel runway’, is located south of the existing runway and will see simultaneous operations.
However, the new south parallel runway will begin functioning only at a limited capacity as not all the taxiways are operationally ready yet.
The Bangalore International Airport Limited’s (BIAL), which operates the airport, has neither revealed further details nor issued a statement regarding the development. Earlier, at a press meet, the Managing Director and CEO of BIAL had suggested that the second runway will be operational from as early as October.
This second runway is part of the airport’s Rs 13,000 crore expansion plan, which involves a new terminal, widening of access roads as well as a new multi-modal transport hub. This also includes setting up of two metro stations inside the 4,000-acre airport campus and also a suburban railway station.
The validation (test) flight operations — the procedure wherein a flight lands and takes off as a test, to check if the runway is capable — were successfully carried out in late August.
Here are five things to know about the new runway
This new runway makes the Kempegowda International Airport the only Indian facility to have two parallel independent runways
Once fully functional, the new runway will facilitate flight operations at close to zero visibility (50m) conditions owing to its Cat-III-B ILS (Category 3 Instrument Landing Systems). This will also eliminate the possibility of fog-induced delays and diversion in the airport, which is a common feature during the winter months
The new runway will also be able to allow the landing of Airbus A380 or any other advanced aircraft being 4,000 metres long and 45 metres wide
Once the new runway is fully functional, the existing runway will be closed down for repairs for close to a year, as it has been operational for over a decade. When the existing runway is also ready for operation, the airport authority will use both the runways as per requirement.
All these integrated advancements will allow the airport, which is now considered the second fastest growing airport in the world, to carry out 90 take-offs and touch-down in one hour.