BENGALURU: The Bangalore international airport will be partly shut down for about two and a half months early next year. There will be no impact on airport operations, Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), the company that operates the Kempegowda International Airport, said in a statement.
To make up for the closure of facilities during the shutdown, efforts have been taken to enhance flight handling capacity in the hours preceding and following the closure each day, the press release said. The partial closure will be for six-and-a-half hours daily (from 10.30 am to 5.00 pm) from Feb. 19, 2017 to April 30, 2017 to carry out a runway upgradation project.
However, BIAL did not explain whether there would be any rearrangement of flight schedules during the two and a half month period. The upgradation work will require closure of the runway in a part of the airport, and partial shutdown of facilities in another. In early February the runway will be closed for rehearsals and during show timings for the annual air show Aero India 2017.
As part of the upgrade, BIAL is building two rapid exit taxiways (RETs) to increase runway capacity and ease traffic at the airport. Currently, the runway handles 38 air traffic movements (ATMs) per hour. With the additional RETs, this is expected to increase to 48 per hour.