The Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) is going to get bigger as the developers have begun the process of expanding the terminal. The expansion is expected to make the airport of the software city a mega world-class airport.

The expansion planned for the next four to eight years will make the airport capable of handling passenger traffic of 51 million per annum from the current 12 million. The airport now operates at about 80% of its capacity.

The air passenger traffic in the city is to rise 15% in 2010-11.

The expansion will be carried out in three phases and a new terminal building, T2 will be built in the third phase. The new terminal T2 will initially have the capacity for handling 15 million passengers in a year while it will be scaled up to 36 million passengers later.

The board of BIAL finalized the expansion plans on Tuesday. There was no decision on the construction of a second runway for the airport. BIAL has received the necessary clearances from the authorities for a second runway to the south of the existing one.

Marcel Hungerbuehler the CEO of BIAL indicated that the work on a second runway would begin by 2016.

“To begin with, the existing terminal would undergo certain modifications to increase capacity. Then, in another two months, work on expanding the existing terminal to handle 15 million passengers would commence,” said G V Sanjay Reddy, vice-chairman of GVK Industries.