BENGALURU: From April 1, all vehicles to the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) will be diverted along a new upcoming road that is being built parallel to the present Main Access Road (MAR), said Hari Marar, the Chief Executive Officer of Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL). The existing MAR, which leads directly from the highway to KIA, will be closed for widening works from April.

The MAR will be widened to 10 lanes (five in each direction) from the existing four  to cater to the increasing vehicular traffic expected at KIA in future. “Traffic will be diverted to the Southern Access Road. When coming to the airport, vehicles need to take a right and then a left at the first roundabout to use this new road to reach KIA,” he said. Marar said, “Work on the new Southern Access Road is on and it will be made operational by April 1, 2019.”

The Trumpet interchange will be expanded, with two lanes on either side to and from the City, he said.
To manage the increasing cargo traffic at the airport, the North Cargo Road will be widened to four lanes. “In future, all the cargo will be shifted to the Eastern side of the airport to relieve congestion caused by it,” he said.

The airport will be spread across 4,000 acres of land as per the Master Plan (2017-2021) BIAL has readied. “All the developments are designed to ensure that provisions are made for seamless plug-in of the upcoming Metro line to the airport, when ready,” he said.  BIAL had begun making profits from 2009, Marar said. “Except for the first nine months after we started the airport, we have made profits,” he added.
Stating that the Eastern tunnel connectivity to the airport will be put in place, Marar said that because of the reduction in User Development Fee to be paid by passengers, its profits from aeronautical tariff will suffer a dip. “At present, our aeronautical vs non-aeronautical profit is in the ratio of 70:30. It will soon change to 60:40 or even to 55:45,” he said.