Revealing the vision behind Bengaluru’s newest airport terminal

11th November was a red-letter day for all Bengalureans and the nation, as honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Kempegowda International Airport’s swanky new Terminal 2, the ‘Terminal in a Garden’.

While the entire management of Bengaluru International Airport Ltd. deserves congratulations, what many people may not be aware of is that this unique ‘Terminal in a Garden’ concept was originally the brainchild of G V Sanjay Reddy, Managing Director, Bengaluru International Airport Limited, when GVK was managing and operating the Bengaluru Airport from 2010 to 2017.

G V Sanjay Reddy dreamed of giving the garden city of Bengaluru a unique new Terminal 2 that would become a landmark, and he decided to conduct an international design competition among selected three internationally renowned architects. His brief to them was to create the world’s first garden terminal as a tribute to India’s Garden City. The three firms reverted with a, “do you want another Changi?”. To explain the concept further, he then elaborated on his vision that Changi has gardens in the Terminal, whereas he was looking to create a “Terminal in a Garden”.

And thus, the selected architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), who incidentally had developed an excellent rapport with G V Sanjay Reddy whilst working on the design of the T2 at Mumbai airport, started translating his vision of a ‘Terminal in a Garden’ for the new T2 that would cater to 45 million passengers per annum (mppa).

G V Sanjay Reddy, Chairman, Reddy Ventures, with Laura Ettelman, Managing Partner, SOM and Peter Lefkovits, Director, SOM

Exploring the history behind the new Bengaluru terminal
“When GVK moved into management of Bengaluru International Airport Ltd. around 2010, we discovered that the existing terminal was capacity constrained and an expansion of Terminal 1 was required to meet the short-term demand before Terminal 2 was commissioned. The capacity of Terminal 1 was expanded from 11.4 mppa to 20 mppa and the area of the terminal was doubled to approximately 158,000 Sqm from 75,000 Sqm. This expansion was a major challenge as it had to be executed all around the operational terminal, but our team took this challenge in their stride and successfully accomplished and completed the expansion of Terminal 1 in February 2014,” explains G V Sanjay Reddy.

“Simultaneously, we also developed a comprehensive new Master Plan, which envisaged, besides the construction of a new Terminal 2, a new second runway and ancillary facilities to cater for the projected traffic of 55 mppa by the year 2029-30. We also worked on various non-aero and aero revenue enhancement projects. By the time GVK moved out of the BIAL management in 2017, we had fully conceptualised and finalised the swanky ‘Terminal in a Garden’- the T2 and KIAB were well on their way towards becoming the third busiest airport in India, establishing themselves as an emerging hub for South India,” he added.
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