Vaastu and post-modern flying

The operations and control centre facility inside the new Hyderabad airport has a row of computer screens and attentive employees scanning everything from conveyor belts to passengers in the concourse through closed circuit cameras.

It is a hi-tech nerve centre that can be accessed only by a few airport employees who direct others across the sprawling facility to rush and attend to problems and fix things. The control room epitomises the new age nature of the facility, India’s first green-field airport built by GMR Hyderabad International Airport.

Even before the new airport came up, Hyderabad always had the better of many airports across India with two aerobridges and its clean bathrooms. The Begumpet airport was located strategically between the city and its twin, Secunderabad. A nice, flower-lined approach and ample parking were another plus.

Opened earlier this March, the new airport, 26 km from the existing one, is located at Shamshabad and is called the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. It boasts of India’s longest runway at 4,200 metres and a capacity to handle 12 million passengers every year.

The control room is an impressive glass and steel structure. But what catches the eye there is a copper cone. Closer inspection shows there are actually two placed on top of each other and connected to a power point. Is it a new fangled signal receiver or a static absorber to help save the computers?

This is a custom-built vaastu device that was installed after a freaky accident when the airport was set to commence operations. A water pipe that passes through the control room burst, flooding it and damaging the computers and other equipment.

Kiran Kumar Grandhi, the chairman and managing director of the company, asked a vaastu consultant to help. The copper device and small blocks of wood placed every few feet on the floor of the control room were the answer.

If it was vaastu that helped the airport take-off, it is retail therapy that works for travellers. The jet set may find it to be the same as elsewhere in the world, but for the less travelled, the book store, the IIFA bar, the food and beverage outlets, the duty free in the international departure and arrival areas and even the baby change room — are all welcome facilities. And, if you are flying international, there is a Hard Rock Café.

Thanks to the rising fuel prices, the airport has revised the rates for the Aeroexpress bus service that connects the airport to the city. The car park has done away with the 15-minute grace parking.

It is the distance factor that has prompted the airport management to propose a dedicated metro rail link that with the old airport site at Begumpet. There will be check-in counters at the old airport.

This is something that happens elsewhere in the world including at the Chep Lap Kok airport, which is located on Lantau 45 km from Hong Kong.