Bengaluru airport to roll out its master plan with renovation of T1, new place for T3 by 2030

“T1 will be refurbished over the course of the next few months and will cater to 35 million passengers. This means all the international areas will be converted into domestic areas and we will upgrade baggage, security and other mechanisms,” he said.

The next part is to complete the second phase of T2 and once the work is over it will cater to another 20 million passengers, said Raghunath.

Further he said, “Eventually the master plan that we are just kicking off, we will also identify where Terminal 3 will be located. But that will come in the late 2020s or early 2030s depending on how the traffic grows.”

Currently, KIA handles 1,05,000 passengers daily out of which 90,000-95,000 are domestic passengers. In addition, terminal 1 handles 70,000 passengers everyday while terminal 2 handles 40,000 passengers a day.

T2 which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2022, has now ‘smoothly’ completed the transition of international operations from T1 in September and is currently catering to nearly 15,000 international passengers daily.

T2 is currently equipped to handle 25 million passengers a year, with the completion of phase 1. The phase 2 which when finished can handle an additional 20 million passengers annually.

According to Raghunath, KIA is currently expected to cater to about 35 million passengers by the end of December, 2023. The need for Terminal 3 comes in view of the growing demand for domestic travel where Bengaluru airport is inherently the ‘natural gateway’ for South India, said BIAL authorities.

Most of the growth specially comes from tier 2 and tier 3 cities whose travel time is under 75 minutes. There is also a strong pitch for a second airport for Bengaluru with the Karnataka government hinting at a new airport on the Tumkur road.

Raghunath also confirmed that if the second airport is proposed, BIAL will go ahead to bid for the airport’s management. The need for a new airport comes in view of KIA reaching its structural capacity of 92 million passengers by 2032-33.

As part of aesthetic structuring and green cover, the airport will also introduce a ‘Garden Pavilion’, a premium lounge with a diverse set of flora and fauna in T2.

In addition, the airport authorities are planning to connect T1 and T2 (and eventually T3) with a ‘rail’ system in order to ensure hassle free movement of passengers between the terminals. Currently, the airport is operating shuttle bus services every 7-8 minutes between T1 and T2.