CISF delays prevents HAL airport handling charter flights

HAL can’t handle charter flights
Monday July 7 2008

Monica Jha

BANGALORE: Despite receiving a green signal from the Ministry of Civil Aviation to operate charter flights, the HAL Airport is in no position to handle charter flights.

The reason being that the security mechanism at the HAL Airport is inadequate for the handling of take-offs and landings of charter flights. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, who are in charge of the security for civil airports in India, are no longer stationed there.

The CISF men, who were deployed at the HAL Airport, were shifted to the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA), Devanahalli, when it began commercial flight operations on May 24. Presently, the HAL Airport’s security is handled by the local police, who do not have the expertise required for the airport’s internal security checks, including customs and immigration/emigration. The local police are deployed just to guard the infrastructure and handle the law and order situation.

A senior CISF official told the this website’s newspaper: “The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has written to the CISF Headquarters in New Delhi, asking them to deploy CISF personal at the HAL Airport. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) had recommended a joint survey by AAI and CISF to identify the security needs and the number of personal required. However, the CISF Headquarters has not yet responded.’’

“The HAL Airport will need at least 100 CISF personnel to handle charter flights. The local police is not good enough for airport security,’’ the officer said. A licence from BCAS is mandatory for anyone to be deployed for security checks at an airport and the CISF is the authorised agency for the job.

Once the HAL Airport starts charter flight operations, it will handle five to six charter flights per day.

Flight diverted

Recently, an international charter flight that was supposed to land at HAL Airport was forced to land at BIA, as the former did not have CISF personnel or the necessary security checks and immigration in place.

Source : The New Indian Express