Bangalore, February 8 2015: An analysis of the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) and the area under the jurisdiction of Bangalore Airport Area Planning Authority (BIAAPA), shows that the city of Bangalore has the necessary requisites to become a major Aerotropolis in the region.
A report published by workplace solutions specialist, Vestian, reveals that Bangalore’s strategic location, regional connectivity, infrastructure, regional economy, operational capacity, governance and real estate demand supports its evolution into a leading aerotropolis in Asia along the lines of Changi International Airport, Singapore & Incheon International Airport, Seoul, South Korea.
An aerotropolis is a form of urban development with an airport city at the centre and aviation‐linked businesses agglomerating around it, thus harnessing it into a dynamic investment hub. A popular global concept, this model of developing cities around an airport is recently being explored in India and has been incorporated in the new Greenfield airports of Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi.
Bangalore has the potential to develop into an aerotropolis due to its strong economic growth, location advantage, favorable demographics, airport’s growing operational capacity, improving infrastructure and availability of large land area for future growth. Additionally, Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) is advantageously located within the region with shortest distance to all other airports in South India.
The announcement of the Chennai ‐ Bangalore, Bangalore ‐Mumbai Industrial corridor is likely to improve its connectivity to major ports and will increase its catchment area due to the growth of new industrial area along this belt and thus bolster development manifold. Moreover, the city benefits from an existing strong economic base and conducive initiatives of the Government of Karnataka to promote various business parks in the vicinity of the KIA. Vestian’s research analysis projects a creation of nearly 500,000 new jobs by 2025 in Bangalore.
While the intra‐city connectivity is currently limited to road and travel time from key economic hubs to the airport takes at least 60‐90 minutes, these can be regarded as short‐term challenges, soon to be overcome by planned infrastructure initiatives such as the Peripheral Ring Road and Metro Rail network as observed by Vestian’s report‐Aerotropolis.
Currently, KIA is far behind in its operational capacity compared to benchmark aerotropolis regions such as Schipol International Airport, Amsterdam; Frankfurt AM Main Airport, Frankfurt, Germany or Memphis International Airport, Memphis, USA. However, at the current rate of growth, KIA is expected to reach annual passenger capacity of 50 million per annum by 2030, which is the average passenger capacity of benchmark airports. The airport has sufficient land to handle this projected increase in capacity and is supported by a hybrid form of governance that combines the best of market driven, hierarchical and network driven approach.
Vestian Global Workplace Services is a fully owned subsidiary of Vestian. Inc, Chicago with offices in USA, India, China, Sri Lanka and the Middle East. specializing in providing occupier focused solutions for commercial, hospitality, industrial and retail sectors across emerging markets