Bengaluru's KIA to be one of four airport hubs, easing international air travel

NEW DELHI: India is planning to have hubs at four airports — Delhi IGIA, Mumbai CSMIA, Bengaluru KIA and Rajkot Hirasar — to allow seamless transfers like the ones desi globetrotters currently experience abroad in places like Dubai, Doha, Singapore and Frankfurt. While the hub-and-spoke model will kick off at Delhi IGIA from June 1, the aviation ministry has begun work on the other three places.

Once the required hub-and-spoke infra is in place, passengers will fly into these airports from multiple cities and then board another aircraft headed to different parts of the world. The aviation ministry is planning to make a start with these four places and then add to the list. While India already has modern airport infra that requires tweaks, it hopes to have strong airlines apart from IndiGo too once Air India group gets its act in order and others like Akasa grow with time.

“For each of the four hubs, we are identifying some Indian cities as their spoke partners for the initial phase. The idea is to ensure a passenger flying from, say, Raipur to Oman via Rajkot is able to clear customs and immigration at Raipur itself and then seamlessly take the connecting flight to Oman from Rajkot. The return journey will also be a smooth one,” said a senior official.

The aviation ministry is coordinating with various other ministries including home, finance and external affairs as many aspects required for a true hub-and-spoke model including security, immigration and customs and are within their remit.

While Air India group, IndiGo and Akasa already count Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru as their key bases, Rajkot is likely to get its required airline connectivity for both the domestic and international legs from IndiGo, said people implementing the plan. “IndiGo is in talks with the ministry as a Rajkot hub seems very workable. Rajkot is the westernmost reasonably big airport of India with key Gulf destinations like Oman less than two hours away. Rajkot is in the heart of a major industrial and trading belt of Saurashtra. Apart from passengers, there is going to be significant cargo movement to and from Rajkot,” they said.

For the past few decades, the absence of strong desi airlines and airports meant the real hubs for Indian globetrotters were outside the country. Flights from multiple Indian cities land around the same time in early morning hours in places like Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Singapore. Passengers, largely Indians or Indian origin, from these flights then board flights of Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad and Singapore Airlines at these hubs going to other parts of the world. Ditto on the way back.

But now with India creating big airports since the start of this Millennium and its airlines like IndiGo and Air India Group having large number of wide body aircraft on order, govt feels it is time to shift this mega transfer business to the country.

Govt is is tackling what is the biggest pain point for international to domestic transfer passengers. They need to collect their baggage on the port of arrival in India; clear customs and then check-in baggage again for the domestic connecting flight. “Baggage for both inbound and outbound international passengers will be transferred seamlessly through airside operations at the hub airport, eliminating the need for passenger intervention,” the aviation ministry says about the change under the new hub-and-spoke policy.

Passengers flying out of India, say from Lucknow to Delhi to London, on the other hand, can through check-in their bag at Lucknow itself if both their flights are on the same airline or alliance’ code share partner carriers.
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