Bangalore Airport Conducts Test Flight on New Runway, Operations to Commence from Dec 5

Mumbai: BIAL, the operator of Bangalore international airport, on Tuesday said it has "successfully" completed the validation flight prior to the commercial operations of the newly-constructed second runway, which is set to be commissioned from December 5.

Work on the second runway and design approvals for Terminal 2 (T2) began in 2017, while the construction work commenced from the mid last year.

The second runway called the New South Parallel Runway (NSPR), in addition to being ILS CAT-III-B compliant will also allow the landing of Code F aircraft such as the Airbus-380.

"The new South Runway at the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru nears operational readiness with the successful completion of validation flight on August 27," said BIAL in a statement.

In BIAL (Bangalore International Airport Ltd) Fairfax holds 54 per cent stake while that of Siemens Projects Ventures is 20 per cent. Karnataka State Industrial & Infrastructure Development Corp Ltd and Airports Authority of India (AAI) have 13 per cent shareholding each in the venture.

Operations on the new runway are planned to commence on December 5, BIAL added in the statement. The validation flights were conducted to certify aerodrome navigational aids and instrument procedures as determined by civil aviation regulations, it said.

The Code F and Cat IIIB compliant runway, measuring 4000-metres in length and 45-metres in width will begin operations initially with CAT I standard certification and will progressively evolve to CAT IIIB as operations stabilise, the statement said.

Code F aircraft are the ones which have a wingspan of 65 meters but less than 80 meters.

Instrument Landing System (Category-III) is an advanced navigation aid empowering an aircraft to land under foggy conditions.

While a Category-IIIA approach is a precision instrument approach and landing that enables a plane to land with a runway visual range (RVR) of 200 meters, Category-IIIB helps in landing with an RVR of less than 50 meters.

Following infrastructure and procedural improvements, the runways will eventually be used for independent mixed-mode operations, allowing flights to take-off and land from either runway, BIAL said in the statement.