Navi Mumbai airport in 4-5 yrs

Indian aviation seems to be on an upswing bringing with it severe congestion and frustrating capacity crunch at key airports. Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Government of India, enlists what the ministry is doing to combat this while

Addressing a gathering at the annual CAPA Conference in Mumbai via a video link, Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, chose answering questions over giving a speech. Taking a volley of questions, he said that while Mumbai and Delhi both have capacity challenges, improvements at the Delhi airport are already underway.

“We expect it to have the fourth runway and release slots for winter 2018 and onwards. So, Delhi will once again resume its growth. We have airports at Jewar and Hindar near Delhi coming up as well. Mumbai, however, with its single runway and saturation of slots, remains the single-most important bottleneck as far as civil aviation in India is concerned. Until the Navi Mumbai International Airport near Mumbai becomes operational, there is no solution to the congestion at the Mumbai airport. Unfortunately, there is no quick way to get the Navi Mumbai airport done. It will take at least four to five years to bring it up to capacity,” he said.

The planning authority– City & Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO)– which has undertaken the Navi Mumbai airport project though we have added capacity, although it is not at the same level as Delhi. Our benchmark as far as immigration is concerned is 20 minutes. If anyone must wait more than that, then we are not doing our job well.”

International growth

Replying to a question about stifling international growth, the minister said that he did not think that the government policies are responsible for constraining international growth. “In my opinion, the constraints are really to do with airport capacity as well as wide-body acquisitions by the low-cost carrier. These two are in my mind as the most important factors constraining international growth. Moreover, international to London five or seven days a week at a competitive price point, the market would explode. We need a direct, wide-body, comfortable experience from say, Kolkata to London at the right price. Such connections would be able to unlock the market. We lack the direct low-cost alternatives to the major aviation hubs of the world, whether it is in Europe or East Asia or the West. With this the international market will evolve.”

Growth trajectory in 4 years

While the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) predicts Indian aviation to grow at about 20 per cent this year, the minister predicted a slightly less ambitious growth pattern. He has put 2019-end as an estimated time of completion. 20-min immigration

Speaking about the steps taken at the Delhi airport in response to the recent spike in international travel, he said, “We recently saw a dramatic spike of 30 per cent in international travel in the winter schedule, particularly at the IGI Delhi airport. In response to that, we along with the Ministry of Home Affairs acted swiftly by increasing capacity for immigration officers as well as immigration counters. In Mumbai however, we are much more constrained even slots are an issue for us, not so much the bilateral agreements between countries. But even more important than the slots are low cost direct international flights,” he said.

Giving a sneak-peek into what the ministry was considering as a possible solution to this, he said that the industry should look at the Norwegian model or the model used by Scoot and Level (the British Airways LCC). These, he said, could work for a price-sensitive market like India. Giving an example for this, he said, “If an airline could mount a direct flight from, let’s say, Amritsar said, “I suspect we are going to see growth in the 15 per cent range rather than 20 per cent, which given the circumstances is still a fantastic growth rate for India. Remember that 15 per cent volume growth means that we are going to double the traffic in five years. So, our planning must be focused on a billion trips a year. That is what we are working towards – enough capacity in air, enough capacity on the ground and enough capacity in our institutions.”

Underlining the projected billion trips per year, he said that every element of the aviation system that the ministry is working on to improve productivity and capacity is with the clear view to enable the system to handle a billion

airport. airp Unfortunately, there is no quick way will take ta at least four to five years to bring it up to capacity. Jayant Sinha Minister of State for Civil Aviation Government of India

trips. “We are planning a billion trips. This means that infrastructure and capacity need to be upgraded to accommodate this. Jewar near Delhi and Purandar near Pune are new greenfield airports which will help us to that,” Sinha added.

Connecting smaller cities

Referring to the government’s UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) programme which looks after regional airport development under the Regional Connectivity Scheme, the minister said, “The most rewarding and engaging aspect of my job has been to go to India’s Tier-III and IV cities like Hubli and Jamshedpur to see how robust the demand is when we start flights from these cities. Take the example of my hometown Ranchi. Two years ago, Ranchi had 11 flights a day. From the summer schedule this year, it will have 27-28 flights a day. This tripling of capacity and the load factors remain very robust.”

He estimated that about six to eight helicopters will also be procured for UDAN II, which will open remote destinations such as Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Kashmir.