The new facility signifies milestone in BLR Airport’s cargo handling capabilities, offering enhanced infra and streamlined processes to meet domestic market’s growing demands. It will play key role in linking industries, strengthening supply chains and position BLR Airport as a leader in cargo handling.
Ritika Arora Bhola
Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru (KIAB/BLR Airport), operated by Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), has partnered with Menzies Aviation to redefine domestic cargo operations with the launch of India’s largest Greenfield domestic cargo terminal (DCT) in terms of designed capacity.
As far as the DCTs are concerned predominantly, there was a space and a capacity issue. Therefore, we have constructed one of the biggest terminals for domestic cargo, spanning 250,000 sq. ft, while the operational area is 200,000 sq. ft. This terminal has got a capacity throughput of 60,000 tonnes. It will facilitate ease of doing business (EoDB) in India, especially domestic trade, said Anil Kumar, CEO, Menzies Aviation, Bengaluru.
Planning & execution
We consulted with all stakeholders involved in the air cargo ecosystem and took their feedback to understand their expectations from us. Based on that, we increased the terminal size, or the number of X-ray machines, the space for wide-body aircraft, or dedicated freighters, which come for the domestic cargo. We have got dedicated ULD spaces and storage areas, which almost accommodates about 30 ULDs.
The total domestic cargo, which was handled last fiscal year was about 180,000 tonnes. With this capacity, we have done 3,60,000 tonnes. We will expand further to about 400,000 tonnes going forward.
Stakeholders’ relations
We have always maintained a cordial relationship with domestic cargo agents. At our existing terminal for domestic cargo, we had huge space constraints, we used to have regular meetings about it with the agents and now we all are quite happy. In addition to that, we are moving towards paperless operations. Domestic cargo agents are supportive about it too. For example, all the invoices will be sent on emails. We have great support from the trade industry. Freight handling charges will remain same as per Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERAI) tariffs.
Security of cargo
As far as safety and security is concerned, we have 16 X-ray machines, and these machines have got a dual view facility and 200 certified screeners. In addition, we have close to 170 AI enabled CCTVs with high density. We are certified and have got permissions for handling dangerous goods.
Gender diversity
If I look back 15 years, I can hardly find any woman employee in this organisation. But today, out of the 1,200 staff I can say 15 per cent of them are women and they also work night shifts. We have women in cargo screening complexes and soon we will be looking at equipment operators also.
Cargo transit time
If you look at the current TAT, you see it is basically 90 minutes for departures, for perishables it is 60 minutes. When the cargo arrives at a terminal from the aircraft, we take not more than 60 minutes to clear that.
