

Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
I’m back in Hong Kong, albeit temporarily, after a brief but magical trip to Bengaluru.
Tomorrow I will take the 12 hour-plus flight across the Pacific to Vancouver, British Columbia, the Canadian province where my father, his father, grandfather and great grandfather before him were born, a reminder of a distant family bloodline and timeline.

I’ve been invited by Vancouver Airport Authority to discover more about this outstanding Pacific gateway, including my first look at the new Avolta-run 2,800sq m Vancouver Duty Free operation that – like the airport as a whole – encapsulates a vibrant sense of place. Watch out for my daily coverage on this Blog and our main website.
As I prepare to visit one of the world’s great airports (rated number one in North America and 13th in the world in the Skytrax 2025 rankings), I reflect fondly on my experience at another.
Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru Terminal 2 was this year awarded the Skytrax 5-Star airport terminal rating – the only Indian airport to have achieved the status. The Bengaluru gateway was also named the best regional airport in India and South Asia.
“I think all of this is reflective of our deep belief that the customer and the customer experience have to be at the centre of everything that we do, everything that we build, everything that we design and everything that we deliver,” Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) Managing Director & CEO Hari Marar told guests at the Pinnacle by BLR Awards held at the BIAL-run Taj Bengaluru hotel last Friday night.

I was privileged to be a judge for this far-sighted programme, which aims to redefine excellence in the aviation sector by celebrating the achievements of stakeholders, including retailers, food & beverage providers, airlines, car rental companies and others.


It was a sensationally good evening full of passion, pride and no little poignancy as some extraordinary stories of commitment were outlined.
None more so than that of Alina Alam, Founder of Mitti Café, a wondrous social enterprise I have written about several times on this Blog, dedicated to empowering individuals with disabilities by providing them opportunities for economic independence and dignity.
Alina, who could not attend having given birth to her second child just days before, was named Woman Achiever of the Year. For me to be on stage with Mitti Café Director & COO Swati Keshan Dokania and team members Kiran Kumari and Chandrakant as they received the award was one of the standout moments of my career.

The evening celebrated innovation as well as excellence. Hari Marar also unveiled ‘Dancing Bamboo’, an airport fragrance designed to create a multi-sensory, immersive experience for passengers. The scent will be deployed in various airport areas, including the arrivals hall, check-in zone and boarding gates.
“We’ve always stated that we want the airport experience to be an extraordinary and unforgettable experience, and there’s nothing that makes it more unforgettable than when it is soothing, calming, truly immersive and multi-sensory,” Hari explained.

In another key initiative, Marar revealed a new sonic identity for the airport, based on BLR’s ‘The World is Waiting For You’ anthem, composed by Grammy-winning artist Ricky Kej and released last year.
BIAL hired Rajiv Raja, Founder & Soundsmith of BrandMusiq, India’s leading sonic branding agency and one of the country’s finest jazz and fusion flautists to create the identity.
The marvellously multi-talented Raja told guests, “When we were analysing this piece of music, we had to look at different elements. Just like every brand has a logo, we create a mogo or musical logo.


“So we had to look at hooks that everybody would instantly recognise and register. One key part of Ricky’s anthem is the chorus. When we were designing the sonic identity, we created what we call a mogoscape – the sonic theme of the brand, within which is the mogo.
“We had to express the essence of BLR airport, which is turning airports into magical destinations. Therefore there had to be a magical feel to it. We also wanted to communicate the inclusiveness and caring nature of the BLR brand as well as delight and inspiration.”
Raja then played a video showing how ‘The World is Waiting For You’ had been turned into BLR’s sonic identity, capturing “all the elements and the essence of Bengaluru.”
As an exhilarating evening drew to a close, I headed straight from the Taj Bengaluru to Terminal 2 for a whistlestop tour of the commercial and hospitality offer before catching my plane home to Hong Kong in the wee small hours of the morning. Below, in photo form, you can see some of my impressions.
A two and a half day door-to-door visit hardly does this stupendously good airport justice but I’ll be back soon enough. For in July, Moodie Davitt STUDIO will be shooting the second edition of our acclaimed Airport Wonders of the World film series (the first was set at Hamad International Airport, Doha).
As the name suggests, the series is dedicated to the world’s great airports and truly the ‘Terminal in a Garden’ that is Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru T2 lives up to that billing.
“Most people see airports as buildings and planes, I see them as people – millions of people that come together,” Hari Marar told me over coffee at the Taj Bengaluru.
“How do you make that into something larger than it is? It’s an opportunity to influence a large cross-section of people and maybe humanity in some sense.”
And that, in our increasingly dark and troubled world, is precisely what Bangalore International Airport Limited is doing. ✈






TERMINAL IN A GARDEN: A KEMPEGOWDA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT BENGALURU T2 PICTURE GALLERY



























