Strategise, Plan, Execute

There is a crying need for a long-term strategy to harness public and private resources to make the most, if not all of the 500 airports in India operational. Only then would the valiant objective of the policy on regional aviation be achieved.

Civil aviation stakeholders in India can frequently be heard lamenting the apathy with which the establishment approaches the concerns and complaints of the industry. It is often felt that the importance of aviation as a significant contributor to the national economy is not adequately understood by the government. Airports are the nerve centres of the aviation industry. The texture of airport infrastructure dictates the manner in which aircraft operators are able to maximise returns on their aircraft investments. As the nuclei of aviation activity, airports contribute directly to a country’s international competitiveness and the flow of foreign investment. But airport infrastructure is developing slowly and the attention of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) towards small airports appears to be inadequate.

Rising Demand

Bombardier, a leading aircraft manufacturer, has estimated that by 2015, 40 per cent of domestic demand in India will be from smaller cities. However, as of now, around 75 per cent of the total capacity of airlines is deployed on the trunk routes with Delhi and Mumbai being two of the busiest airports in the country. These two airports alone constitute around 60 per cent of the total air traffic in the country. This pattern of air traffic gravitating towards big cities was discernible even in the 1990s when the first steps towards liberalisation of the aviation sector in India were taken. In 1996, the government established Alliance Air, an Indian Airlines subsidiary to cater to the regional air travel market. Despite its laudable objective, the initiative failed because its fleet, mainly Boeing 737, was appropriate neither for operations at regional airports nor for short-haul flights. When the second Indian aviation boom began around 2003, the Indian concept of regional aviation, an adaptation of the hub-and-spoke model, came up again. Thus came about in 2007, a Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) introducing a regulatory mechanism for promoting “air connectivity between specific regions and enabling more efficient air travel within the region, as well as linking such regions and expanding air travel services for Tier-II and Tier-III cities within the country’s aviation network”.

The airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad were formally declared as “metros”. The various “regions” were identified as North, South, West, East/Northeast coinciding with the Flight Information Regions (FIRs). The airports in a particular region were those enumerated by the AAI for the respective regions. The objective of providing connectivity to smaller cities and towns has, however, so far eluded the aviation industry. Perhaps the most important cause for this failure has been the lack of adequate number of airports and supporting infrastructure to uphold regional operations.

Infrastructure Woes

At the recent World Economic Forum event in Mumbai, Indian infrastructure firms vented their frustration at governmental paralysis, bureaucratic stonewalling of projects and corruption describing these as “needless brakes” on growth in a sector key to the country’s prosperity. Ajit Gulabchand, Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Construction Company Limited, referred to the ‘huge slowdown’ in infrastructure-building in India and told Reuters in an interview, “There are many reasons for it. The scams have created a lull in decision-making, people are afraid to take decisions.” According to one estimate, losses from poor infrastructure shave off an estimated two per cent from India’s GDP and add to pressure on inflation that remains above nine per cent. Infrastructure developers complain that the government has not kept its side of the bargain by failing to create a policy framework to allow some sectors to grow. This semi-paralysis afflicts aviation as well. Notwithstanding the slowdown in policy-making, the government has realised that it lacks the financial muscle that our neighbouring rival China has consistently demonstrated in developing infrastructure by turning to the private sector to partially fund airport development.

There are more than 500 airports in India of which, as per the AAI website, 125 are operational. Of these, only 50 in the public category and 15 in the private category are licensed by the DGCA for operations. The DGCA licence would appear to confer upon an airport a little more legitimacy in terms of compliance with regulations and thus these may be considered safer than the unlicensed ones. However, the overall situation is not encouraging as 125 airports are far too short of the requirement for a country with the geographical extent of India. An operational airport gives an immense advantage to a small town or city in as much as its accessibility and the attendant business opportunity is increased manifold. Indeed, that is the raison d’être for the 2007 policy on regional aviation. What is required is a push to make more of the Tier-II and III city airports operational and safe to provide the necessary impetus to regional aviation. The metros are frequently travelled to and from by DGCA officials and are also under watch through regular audits. However, the infrastructure-related problems at smaller airports often escape attention. Some of the longstanding problems may be the surface condition of runways and manoeuvring areas, serviceability and reliability of radio aids for navigation, lack of aids for approach and landing, runway incursion by animals due to inadequately sterile perimeter walls/fencing, insufficient crash and firefighting services, scant medical support services and poor tarmac discipline on the part of vehicles plying on the airside. Even when un-serviceability or breakdowns are reported at these small airports, priority for repairs is usually lower than at the metros.