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By Dhurjati Mukherjee

The aviation sector in India is poised for a big leap forward in the next five years with nearly 45 to 50 airports being revamped by public and private players. Though the unprecedented expansion has become essential, the present infrastructure is woefully inadequate to handle the growth perceived in the years ahead. But with increased air travel becoming a reality because of reduced fares, the Government has realized the need to give special emphases to this sector through public-private participation.

According to a study by Assocham and Ernst & Young, India would need at least 250 aircraft by 2012. While only 15 million passengers travelled by air in 2003-04, a little more than the number of people who travel by rail in a single day, the figure was almost 75 million in 2005-06 and is expected to reach 100 million by this year end. Similarly, the number of aircrafts in the Indian skies, now about 290, will witness an annual growth rate of 15-20 per cent to keep pace with the increasing demand.

The Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel, has anticipated an investment of Rs 100,000 crores in the next five years in fleet acquisition. However, his estimates seem rather modest as Kingfisher alone has ordered for 50 aircraft amounting to Rs 20,000 crores at the last Paris show. Similarly the merged entity of Air India and Indian may buy more planes than the 111 ordered by them last year to cope with increased traffic, both domestic and international. Out of these 68 Boeing jetliners have been ordered for an estimated Rs 35,000 crores. Of these, 25 will be delivered in this fiscal year itself. Indian has also ordered another 43 Airbuses.

It is estimated that even with private airlines giving tough competition, Air India would need substantial more aircrafts as it would have to retire 65 planes over the next three years. These planes would be passed on to the new cargo subsidiary being floated by the public sector airline. Air India has also joined the Lufthansa-led Star Alliance, which will help it to fly to many European destinations from the hub that is to be set up in a European airport shortly.

In fact, with traffic out of India expanding at 25 per cent and Air India estimates it may need more planes by 2011. “Looking at the demand and the passenger growth, the number of additional aircraft needed would be in the region of 60 planes. But this is a very rough estimate”, pointed out the Air India chairman, B.V. Thulasidas.

Besides, with the increase in fleets of both Air India and the private players, the need for upgrading the airports is also being looked into. Presently, only 62 domestic and 12 international airports are in active use though the country has over 300 airports and airstrips. It may be mentioned here that except Delhi and Mumbai, no airport is equipped to handle the humongous A 380 of which Kingfisher has ordered five.

Also, expansion and modernization of the existing airports has been a key priority of the Government. While the Government is investing around Rs 12,000 crores in modernizing the airports, current estimates indicate that private investors would pump in Rs 24,000 crores in the coming years.

The modernization of the Delhi and Mumbai airports, which handle around 40-42 per cent of the total traffic, are already ongoing with an investment of Rs 5316 crores earmarked in the first phase for the Delhi airport and Rs 6130 crores for Mumbai. Both projects are expected to be completed by 2009 and would compare with the best in Asia. The Aviation Ministry has also decided that both Delhi and Mumbai would have more than one airport in future to cope with growing requirement.

Regarding the Kolkata airport, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) finalized its plan for an integrated international-cum-domestic airport at a cost of Rs 17000 crores by 2010. Drawn up by the Aeroport de Paris, the plan for the Kolkata airport would be executed by the AAI and work is expected to start soon. The new modernized airport would have a capacity of 20 million passengers annually, up from the current 5 million and would be capable to handle traffic till 2023-24. Meanwhile the State Government wants the Kolkata airport to have two runways to meet the growing future requirement.

According to records, 70 per cent of the total traffic is concentrated in five airports (Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata apart from Delhi and Mumbai). As such, these airports needed to be expanded and modernized to ease congestion and ensure swift movement of passengers. Apart from these airports, the Committee on Infrastructure, constituted by the Prime Minister last year, approved the modernization and development of all the 35 non-metro airports by the AAI to world class standards at an estimated cost of Rs 4662 crores. .

These airports are spread from the South (Thiruvanthapuram) to the North (Jammu) and from the North East (Imphal) to the West (Rajkot). The land area of these airports ranges from 15 to 1500 acres. Though space has been a major constraint for some of these airports, the AAI has finalized airside plans for 24 of them, which will again be through public-private participation.

Meanwhile the airport city theme is gaining ground with greenfield airports at Hyderabad and Bangalore providing enough scope. Further, the proposed cargo hub at Nagpur may include a special economic zone (SEZ) besides logistics and a township. Hotels, retail space and various entertainment options are being planned for Delhi and Mumbai as well.

In the ultimate analysis, the growth of the aviation sector is crucial to the development of the country and also to the country’s status as a major economic power. With the sector open to the private sector and fares having come down, more and more people would prefer air travel. Thus it is necessary that the time schedule of the airports modernizing work is maintained and completed in time. ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)

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