HAL Bangalore International Airport

HAL Bangalore International Airport (ICAO: VOBG), also known as HAL Airport or Hindustan Airport, is an airport exclusively used as a testing facility by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and the Indian Armed Forces. It served as the city's domestic and international airport until 2008, and was replaced by the Bengaluru International Airport on 24 May 2008.

HAL Airport in year 1947
In 1964, the airport was acquired by the Indian Government and was mainly used for defence purposes. Domestic commercial flights started in the 1980s and international destinations in 1997. The airport had gone through a series of expansions and upgrades to keep pace with the growing civilian air traffic in the city. While the rated capacity of the airport was 3.6 million passengers per year it was last operating at a super saturated level of 7.5 million. Reportedly HAL requested airlines to discontinue the addition of flights to and from Bangalore some time ago.

The airport is the primary site of HAL's research and development operations, currently half of the Indian Air Force fleet consists of aircraft manufactured by the company. The airport's management issue also caused contention between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Thus turf wars may have been the major problem, and not over-riding operational factors.
In 2005, Bangalore International Airport Limited, started construction on the new airport. HAL airport's civilian operations were replaced by Bengaluru International Airport, while the old airport served exclusively as a test and research facility.