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Mumbai: The pioneer of low-cost aviation in India is starting a helicopter airport shuttle service to help well-heeled commuters in Bangalore beat the city's chronic traffic, underlining the rising cost of the country's crumbling infrastructure.
G.R. Gopinath, the founder of India's first budget carrier, Air Deccan, said he planned to charge $100 (Dh367) for a one-way flight to the new airport, which is three hours' drive from the most important business parks in India's software capital.
The demand for private air services is expected to grow 50 per cent a year, a report by consultants Ernst & Young said, as rising car ownership and a lack of investment in infrastructure added to gridlock in India's cities.
Aside from helicopters, rising demand for private jets is also prompting industrial groups such as Tata and Jindal Steel and Power to invest in the business.
Gopinath's helicopter service is likely to receive a welcome reception from frustrated business people, such as Ashish Puravankara, director of Puravankara Projects, a leading Bangalore real estate company.
"Traffic really frustrates me," Puravankara said. He recently bought a Ferrari, but Bangalore's roads are so clogged that the only way he and other sports car enthusiasts can enjoy their vehicles is by heading for the city's outer ring road early in the morning or late at night.
Puravankara works in the city centre. But the traffic problem will be even worse for software executives arriving on domestic and long-haul flights at Bangalore's new airport, due to open next month.
They will need to travel double the distance to reach Electronics City, which is on the opposite side of the city. It is home to outsourcing industry leaders such as Infosys Technologies and Wipro.
Roads connecting the new airport to Bangalore city are planned, but Gopinath said that even when these were finished the journey would take two hours "because by that time there will be more vehicles than the roads can handle".
Executives at Infosys said that flying from Bangalore's new airport to Chennai, capital of the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, would be no less strenuous and time-consuming than opting for the five-hour train ride.
The journey had become so tedious, Puravankara said, that one of his friends had converted a bus into an office, complete with its own secretarial staff, for his regular trips between the two cities.
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