Bangalore Airport

I arrived with Jetstar at 3 in the morning. Disappointed to find an international airport that really needs repainting and change of floor tiles. I was lucky that the toilet had running clear water. Got my bags scanned but no officer was watching the screen. Many people slept on the turned-off conveyor belts on the table on the floor everywhere. Prepaid taxi service was ok. Actually they also have airport threecycle taxi but when I tried it they conned me by asking double the meter because it was before 6am. My Indian friend later told me that the rate was 1.5 times the meter between 10pm - 6am. The airport was small and located inside the city so actually it was also rather nicely located. Unlike gigantic airport like Changi or Cengkareng you can actually reach the city on foot.

It helps to have realistic expectations when travelling through Bangalore airport. Yes it is the so-called IT-capital of India but you are not in Delhi or Mumbai. Allow about an hour to get through all the security checkpoints check-in ticket control etc. Things take longer not all airport staff speak English - some can and will not bother to. Rest bathroom shopping facilities will be limited. But if asked nicely people are helpful. Especially if you are a woman traveller with laptop document bag etc. in addition to your luggage there will invariably be someone who helps with your luggage as it goes in and out of numerous security checks. And where goodwill fails Rs. 20 goes a long way. Try to have some small bills with you there are plenty of porters and "handlers" who will get you through the check-points fairly smoothly.

Bangalore Airport is as other Indian airports not a place to relax. At night they have a few international flights eg. to BKK FRA and CDG but only one departure gate which means that the small waiting hall is completely overcrowded. Business Class lounges are not existing. You have to pass the usual uncountable check points for everything to keep the huge amount of uniformed staff working. The newest idea of the airport authorities seems to be that they strictly allow now only one piece of hand baggage. So even when Air France accepted my two pieces (Laptop bag and small briefcase) I faced a unpleasant discussion at the security check point together with nearly all other passengers who had two pieces. (Even cameras and hand bags were counted as one piece). Not really that what you might be expect from the worlds IT-capital.

Several porters who will get the luggage wherever you are at the conveyor belt at the car at the check in when standing in line. Don’t use them. If you are keep in mind that a salary for a person working as a teacher is rps 3000 a waiter in a restaurant is rps 2000. There is nothing to do at this airport. There is no lounge. For domestic departure the process is as smooth as it can get in India. For international departures you have to wait 500-600m outside the terminal to get past the first security check (it started raining when I stood there) many checks and x-ray and checks again. Finally inside all shops except 1 where closed although there where 5 international planes departing at the same time. There where roughly 1200 people waiting in the same departure lounge at the same time.

You will probably be greeted by several porters who will get the luggage out of your car and take in up to check-in for you. There is nothing to do at this airport. It is basically check-in security (which opens at 5am) and then you are in the departure lounge. There is a small duty free shop (with a reasonable selection of alcohol and cigarettes and prices in US$) and one or two souvenir shops in the departure lounge but that's just about it. There is also a (yellow) mobile charging box on the wall to the left of the actual gate. A small coffee shop (Coffee Day) serves coffee soft drinks and snacks. The coffee is very good - quite strong but very nice and great at 5.30 in the morning. There were additional outlets but they were not open when I was there. Snacks were not that great but there were sandwiches cookies and a variety of cakes. The boarding process was laborious. There was one guard who checks your boarding pass and that you have stamped hand baggage (you have to attach a luggage tag to your hand baggage and this gets stamped when you go through security/xray screening) receipts. You then go through secondary screening (random) and tertiary screening (also random) followed by boarding pass processing and finally you get on the plane! Make sure you have mosquito repellant available as there are mosquitos in the check-in area. They also hang around in the departure hall but the fans in there are quite powerful and blow them away. But if you get bitten by them I'd spray or put lotion on before you arrive.

Travelled through Bangalore airport twice on domestic flights recently. It's not a world-class airport but both times (around noon) it was not crowded arrival and check-in was quick and efficient and staff helpful and polite. The terminal building is quite old and small but not as dirty as Delhi and some infrastructure improvements would make a big difference.

One could be forgiven for not realising that one is at the airport of what is trumpeted as India’s IT capital. Checking in with any airline using Air India’s computer terminals at BLR passengers can forget about obtaining boarding passes to their final destination if their trip involves a transfer at an intermediate point – the system cannot handle anything but the leg departing from Bangalore. The immigration desks have no scanners for swiping machine-readable passports. However there is uniformed personnel in abundance – some of them doing nothing else but checking whether their counterpart a few yards away has placed a stamp in your documents. Where they are really needed these officers do nothing. Boarding a TG flight on 7th August the procedure was a disaster. Instead of providing the announced priority to families with children and those needing special assistance (and then allowing business class passengers on first) the uniformed guard at the gate was happily (yet again) checking for the numerous stamps on boarding passes of anyone who was rude enough to push their way through (and such people are in abundance in India let me tell you). On the infrastructure side matters have deteriorated even further. Last week I witnessed the collapse of a new structure designed to hide the aircon ducts in the domestic terminal burying the Kingfisher check in desk and one of their agents under the debris. At the international departures building buying a visitor’s ticket has become a farce as passengers and visitors are now separated at the front door and have to use separate escalators. And judging by the state of the seats in the international departures lounge I wonder whether the stray dogs that are omnipresent on the apron area are allowed to use the seats during quite periods – it is simply unimaginable that humans could soil cushions to that extent – and even more so that no one seems to realize they need cleaning.