The new Bangalore international airport

In recent months, this airport has resulted in numerous heated discussions in Bangalore. You would hear things like this, its 60 km away (for Bangalore 60 Km is a lot!), it takes 3 hours to reach there, traveling to the new airport itself is very expensive, the old airport was just fine, we don't need a this new airport etc etc.

Obviously I was dreading traveling to this airport. On Friday my flight to Delhi was at 5pm, since it takes an eternity to reach the airport I started at 2:15 pm. The travel options include taking a taxi/auto directly to the airport, or using the Airport bus service. Taxi costs something like 600 bucks so I decided to take a bus. But the bus frequency near my house was 1 hr so I took an auto and reached Hebbal in 15 min, the point where all bus routes converge. I got a bus in a couple of minutes. I have to say the bus was really nice, it was a Volvo AC bus, it had enough space to keep passenger luggage, and the ride was really comfortable. Hebbal is considered city outskirts, there was not much traffic from Hebbal to the airport and I reached the airport by 3:05. Not bad at all!

The airport is a collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere, vast tracts of land surround it. I went in the departure terminal, it is a huge hall with checkin counters of all the airlines present neatly in one line at the back of the hall. Indigo airlines is in one corner, with 4-5 counters available there were hardly any people waiting in queue. So it took me just a couple of minutes to check in. After checking in I was directed to the 1st level, yes 1st level!, for security check. I was really dreading this part, because at the old airport it used to take an eternity for security check to complete. Here I was through in a couple of minutes!. I checked the time, it was 3:15! I had left home just an hour earlier. This was impossible with the old airport.

My flight was at 5 pm, I had quite a bit of waiting to do. I entered the airport lounge with this thought, and to my complete surprise it was practically another shopping mall (obviously with ridiculously high prices :) and minus the couples). I had read that there was free wireless internet for the passengers, so I took out my laptop and tried to connect. I got a webpage asking me to enter a passoword, which I can obtain by SMSing to 56677. I tried SMSing a few times, but all I got was 'Service is currently unavailable'. I switched off the lappy and got on the phone. Called a friend, made a call to home as well. Then loitered around for a bit. Somehow the clock ticked 4:30, and finally I heard the boarding announcement. Flight on time!! A near impossibility on friday with the old airport! The flight was boring as usual, it landed Delhi around 7:45. Entering the Delhi airport I realized that Bangalore is finally better than Delhi in something :).