2024 Fall Issue of Urban Land - 69

Despite PPPs' being much more efficient
than the previous process, delays remain. The
most common of them relate to land acquisition
by the government. " What they have
committed to may not come as [the timeline
indicates], " says Girish K.S., Bengaluru-based
senior director and India head of valuation at
JLL, " but the government almost always delivers
eventually. "
For the airport architect, having a PPP
as a client is a different proposition than a
government-owned development. " When you
work with government clients, you know that
it is more about how you will create a good
experience, at cost, " says Creative Group's
Gurpreet Shah. " But when you are working
with a private client, you know you have to
make a great experience at a very, very reasonable
cost. "
The aims are different for a private client.
" A private client is not looking at a facility
that he's creating as [being] a monument
for the nation, " explains Gurpreet Shah. " He
is creating a facility, which will give him an
end product as well, so the architect has to
be much more sensitive in terms of return on
investment. "
Facial recognition
The new airports are pushing technological
limits, too. In Bengaluru, the actual process of
moving through the terminal is less stressful
than the typical airport experience because
a biometric identity program eliminates the
need to show a boarding pass. " Your face is
your boarding pass. From entry to the airport,
all the way through to boarding, you can just
use your face, and the system will allow you
through, " explains Kempegowda's Raghunath.
Developed at the Bengaluru airport and
now in use at eight Indian airports, the facial
recognition system is set to be implemented
at 18 Indian airports by year's end, " which
means we will probably have the largest biometric
travel program in the world, " Raghunath
says.
These kinds of changes are encouraging
Gurpreet Shah to design with adaptability in
mind. Because airport processes continue to
evolve, he says, " There has to be a certain
level of flexibility in terms of planning and in
terms of design. "
Such improvements constitute good news
for the airport operator, in Gurpreet Shah's
view: " If your processes are more mechanized
. . . the design then evolves from a processoriented
design towards a design, which is
making more dollar value to the [investor]. "
Infrastructure development
India's central government has made infrastructure
development a key part of its
economic program. One indication of the
importance of airport development is that, on
March 10 of this year, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi virtually inaugurated or physically laid
the foundation stones for 15 airports throughout
India.
The central government plans to invest
approximately $12 billion over the next two
years.
Much of the next round of airport network
expansion is slated for the country's Tier 2
cities, such as Amritsar, Jaipur, and Kochi,
which have metropolitan populations between
1 million and 4.5 million; many are typically
180 miles (300 km) to 250 miles (400 km)
away from a major Tier 1 city.
Such projects are part of a larger central
government initiative to strengthen the country's
infrastructure, particularly with regard
to Tier 2 city connections, according to Jerry
Kingsley, head of strategic consulting for JLL
in Chennai. This process should foster more
tourism, including religious pilgrimages, as well
as easier connections with business units that
large companies are setting up in smaller, less
congested cities.
Kingsley does not see this priority changing
anytime soon: " We are definitely going to see
continued investment in infrastructure, and
when we say 'infrastructure,' [it] includes a lot
of smaller towns. "
Not that the big towns are stopping. In
Bengaluru, for instance, a third terminal-a
mirror-image of Terminal 2-is to open in
2030, raising annual capacity from 35 million
travelers to about 80 million.
Even then, room for growth still exists.
Some forecasters expect India's domestic traffic
to double by 2030 (when it reaches 300
million domestic passengers). International
travel is projected to more than double by
then (reaching 160 million international passengers),
which will nevertheless amount to
fewer than a third of India's 1.4 billion people.
As impressive as all those numbers might
seem, however, Raghunath insists that we are
still in early days for Indian airports. " I think
we're still in Version 1, 1.5, or even just about
to Version 2 of what Indian airports could be, "
he says. UL
BENNETT VOYLES is a Berlin-based business writer.
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