Kingfisher has always said that they want to make Bangalore their operational base. And (Kingfisher owner Vijay) Mallya has requested for additional facilities. When they complained about the problems in the first two days, they complained in a very professional way, whatever they said was very justified. And we really solved it in a professional way. In view of this, I can’t understand the bad remarks from Mallya about us. Because he has the least reasons to speak like that. He asked for a lounge, we have given him that, he has a Kingfisher bar there. Whatever he requested, we have given him. He wanted space for office, we have given it. But they are yet to begin work on it. I personally do not understand why he made such remarks.
We have offered him whatever he wanted—office space, MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul facility). The first time he came to the airport, he may have expected a much bigger airport, which is grand. But we have always said we do not want to build a status symbol, we want a functional airport; whenever the need arises, we can increase the size. Maybe he was disappointed...
Comparison with GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd, which built a bigger facility relatively more smoothly?
We wanted construction of the airport (to take off) in 2002. We could begin construction around mid-2005, the time we wanted to open the airport! During the same time we had unprecedented gowth in aviation, because we had a proactive civil aviation minister who opened the skies. They allowed new airlines.
Our promoters were disappointed with the slow progress... It would have been impossible for us to go to the board to tell them that we will be building a bigger airport and we need to redesign. Nobody would invest one additional rupee for that—they never knew whether we would succeed or not. I made a new traffic study and went to the board for additional money. We had two choices—either we stop and redesign, which will result in further delay or begin construction and during construction, try as much as possible to expand the airport without delaying the opening. We increased the scope of our contractors by 70% without delaying the opening date. We went from Rs1,412 crore to Rs1,930 crore and finally we had to increase (the cost) to Rs2,470 crore because of delays.
Hyderabad, which was two or three years behind us, were carefully watching. They even copied our concession agreement and it is not a joke.
It is said within a year Bial will get full in terms of handling capacity...
(Interrupts)... It makes me angry. Even the ministry speaks about annual capacity. There is nothing called annual capacity. Peak-hour capacity (is what matters). We don’t have peak hour for 24 hours.
If airlines want to operate, when the slots are full between 6 and 8, we ask them to come the next hour and we have space. You spread the peaks over the day, if you could do that over 24 hours, then our capacity would be 24 million.
What are the indications on the past one month in terms of traffic?
Presently, we get a feeling that there is a slowdown. It may be a seasonal slowdown, it is a slow season now. But we should see how it grows. Let us assume that we have an increase of 15%, then next year we may have around 11.5-12 million, this we can handle, another 10% we can handle, then it will be a bit tight.
But for two-three years down the line, infrastructure building has to start now. Right ?