Govt postpones BIAL launch to May 24

The Civil Aviation Ministry has delayed the launch of Bangalore International Airport, or BIAL, by 24 hours. It says BIAL will be launched on the midnight of Friday and does not give any reason for delay in the launch.
The Bangalore International Airport authorities received a notification about an hour-and-a-half ago saying that the Ministry of Civil Aviation has decided that it will commission the new airport 24 hours after schedule. That means, a minute past midnight on May 24 instead of May 23.
A PIL filed with the Karnataka High Court vacation bench against closing down of the old airport comes up for hearing tomorrow. The High Court had asked the Ministry and BIAL to furnish minutes of the meeting when they decided to close down the airport. We will know more about that tomorrow. This is probably one of the reasons for the delay.
Also, Bangalore’s biggest corporates were fairly unhappy with the decision to close down the old airport. There was a lot of pressure coming from that direction as well. BIAL authorities said it came as a complete surprise to them that there is nothing they can do about it except try and minimize the inconvenience to both passengers and airlines. They are left with a mammoth task right now of informing all of the airlines and passengers that they are not landing at the new airport tomorrow, and that they are going to be landing at the old airport for another 24 hours.
2008-05-21 21:00:02 Source : News Bulletins/CNBC-TV18

By Faye D’Souza/CNBC-TV18
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