The Hindu Business Line : Oberoi-L&T combine wins Bangalore airport hotel bid

It will be the country's first true airport-hotel that will be within walking minutes from the terminal building, said Mr Albert Brunner, CEO of Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), on Wednesday.

L&T, which is one of the five stakeholders in the airport and the EPC contractor to the Rs 1,930-crore project, is also to be the contractor for the hotel; it has done other Oberoi projects.

The bid document called for an operator-developer team and the Oberoi-L&T team won and signed the bid in mid-November.

It was a contest that saw prime bidders such as the European major Accor Group with its Novotel brand and the Dubai-based property major's Emaar-MGF Land India consortium, Mr Brunner told Business Line.

The hotel, to come up at an investment of Rs 250 crore, will have a spa, conference facilities and restaurants and will be ready in November 2008, he said during an onsite project update.

This will be the second property in Bangalore for the Oberoi Group, which already runs a five-star property in the central business district on MG Road.

"This combine's investment was the highest, even though it did not offer us the highest revenue. In all our concessions, we never always went for the highest revenue," he said, adding that the Oberoi-L&T combine was picked on considerations of brand, time and quality.

The Oberoi-Hilton brand tie-up of October 2003 currently has nine first-class hotels with nearly 1,900 rooms in the country, including Gurgaon, Chennai, Kochi, Agra and Mumbai.

15 MONTHS TO GO

Mr Brunner said that since the construction of the airport began in July 2005, 42 per cent of the works has been completed.

BIAL is targeting January 2008 for completing the entire airport work and expects to launch it on time in April 2008, he added.

The company has 56 employees and expects to grow to 350 people by 2008.

The operational manuals are being readied and the slot co-ordination process is on.

Starting mid-2006, BIAL finalised most of its commercial concessionaires to run aviation-related and non-aviation businesses; all investments will bring in another Rs 750 crore into the project.

The promoter investments amount to nearly Rs 400 crore.

"We have 15 more months to go (for commercial operations.) We have achieved quite a lot but there is still a lot more to do," Mr Brunner said.

BIAL has signed its aviation fuel facility concession with Skytanking and IOC.

Cargo handling has been split between two operators - SATS-Air India and Bobba Group-Menzies Aviation - for nearly three lakh tonnes of annual cargo traffic.

AI-SATS and GlobeGround, a Bird Group-Lufthansa combine, have bagged the ground handling operations.

Lufthansa LSG Sky Chefs and Taj SATS have been chosen for flight catering, while HMSHost Corporation will operate the food and beverage services at domestic and international departure points.

A consortium of Nuance and Shopper's Stop is the retail and duty-free shops operator.

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