No landing space

With passenger traffic growing by 24 per cent in April-September ’04, or double the growth in the same period last year, the government’s decision to allow private Indian carriers to fly overseas is a more than welcome move.

Add to this the fact that planes are finally being bought for the two public sector carriers, and it’s evident the country’s aviation sector is finally getting the focus it deserves.

Indeed, this growth makes India one of the fastest-growing segments in the world. The growth is not just in domestic traffic (which grew 27 per cent) but also in international traffic (19 per cent) as well as cargo (21 per cent).

But if you have more planes, where are they to land? While the government has talked of the Delhi and Mumbai airports being privatised, this was a promise first made by the Vajpayee government early in its tenure; indeed, as many as eight Cabinet notes have been prepared on the matter.

With no action on the ground, both traffic hubs remain at the bottom of the heap as far as global airports go. The International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) last airport survey of 57 big international airports ranked Mumbai and Delhi as 56th and 57th, respectively.

Apart from the fact that even a few days of fog over the last couple of weeks has thrown flights out of gear since the aviation regime (the airports and the airlines) hasn’t been able to coordinate its act on low visibility flying, the other issue is that airports like Delhi and Mumbai (and these are the best in the country) simply do not have the capacity to handle more traffic today.

Mumbai still handles less than a fourth of what Heathrow does and Delhi does just around 18 per cent.

So, if the open skies policy and the new planes result in more traffic, as they are intended to do, flying in the country is going to become an even bigger nightmare.

To put things in perspective, China has just spent $2.4 billion constructing the Guangzhou airport, which can handle 25 million passengers (twice what Mumbai does) each year, and in the second phase the airport plans to be able to handle 80 million passengers a year.

While many view Guangzhou as a costly gamble, given that China now has five international airports within 120 km of one another, it’s worth keeping in mind that China has seven airports in the world’s top 150 while India has just two—as a result, China attracts 35 million international tourists each year as compared to India’s 3 million.

Airports mean tourist earnings as well as earnings from duty-free shops, hotels, and shopping malls —in 2002-03, the world’s top 50 airport groups had an average operating profit of over 19 per cent.

The sooner the government realises airports are good business in more ways than one, the better.