India’s first HeliTaxi service open between Bengaluru airport and city

Team Udayavani, Mar 6, 2018, 12:19 PM IST

Bengaluru: India’s first helicopter shuttle service (HeliTaxi) was opened in Bengaluru on Monday for the general public between the Bengaluru air terminal and the city, to make the connectivity between miles easier. As India’s third busiest airport after New Delhi and Mumbai, Bengaluru has no less than 60,000 airplanes landing or taking off on working days.

The Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL), situated in Devanahalli, around 40 km from the Bengaluru city, had tied up with helicopter specialist co-op Thumby Aviation to transport air travellers to and fro the city.

Speaking to the media, Thumby Chairman Group Captain K.N.G. Nair said “We are right now working the administration from 6.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. furthermore, 3.15 p.m. to 6 p.m. between the airport and the city through a helicopter that can seat six passengers,”

Nair also said “Bengaluru required an administration like this considerably more than alternate urban areas because of its poor street thickness (the measure of street length per square km zone of land), when contrasted with other Indian urban communities,”

The decision to launch the helicopter taxi benefit was declared in August 2017 by Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha.

As of now, the chopper specialist organization has utilized just a single helicopter to transport the air travelers and will build the numbers of helicopter upon the demand by the public.

A passenger can decide on the helicopter taxi benefit from BIAL to Electronic City in the south (around 70 km from the airport), which is home to several innovation firms including, Infosys and different multinationals, or Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Airport in the city.

The HeliTaxi is relied upon to make one back and forth trip every hour between the helipad at BIAL and Electronic City or HAL Airport. The trip for every passenger in the seven-seater (six passengers and a pilot) HeliTaxi is priced at Rs. 3,500 with extra duties.

The HeliTaxi service fare is similar to a 5-7 seater extravagance taxi fare, which costs about Rs. 3,000-4,000 from the city’s far end to the air terminal.