BIAL strengthens management after change in ownership

With Prem Watsa’s Fairfax assuming control of Bengaluru International Airport (BIAL), the airport's management structure is to get people from across the world.

In June, erstwhile owner GVK exited the project, selling its remaining stake to Fairfax. In March, BIAL had restructured the board of directors, with induction of Fairfax chairperson Prem Watsa, group executives Chandran Ratnaswami and Harsha Raghavan, and HDFC chairperson Deepak Parekh as additional directors.

“Many of our former executives have come back. The new owners are strengthening the management, looking at the massive expansion project,” said a BIAL executive.

Among the many who have joined the core management team are Javed Malik, now the chief operating officer. Malik had left BIAL in 2016 to join Jet Airways as vice-president, global airport services. Kenth Guldbjerg has been brought as chief commercial officer. He'd worked in the airport division of erstwhile owners GVK and had previously worked with the Copenhagen and Newcastle airports.

Bhaskar Anand Rao has joined as CFO from Dubaibased Al Rashideen Group. Rao had earlier worked as CFO of GMR Infrastructure, which operates the Delhi and Hyderabad airports.

Tom Shimmin, joined as chief projects officer, used to look after upgradation of Nasir International Airport in Maldives. He will be responsible for the major upgradation BIAL is currently undergoing.

Expansion work includes construction of a second runway and a new terminal building (T2) to handle 45 million additional passengers a yer by 2027-28. The project was hastened due to rapid growth in air traffic, which had strained the airport infrastructure. Bengaluru’s airport traffic has grown over seven times to 22 million passengers in 15 years.

The second terminal will be built to handle 25 million additional passengers in the first phase, by 2021.