The Indian airport saga

India is currently on an aviation high. The stagnant aviation sector, which saw the three major players in Indian Airlines, Jet and Sahara battle it out for a meagre number of flyers for a country our size, surged ahead on a liberalized avation policy and as the benefits of economic reforms began to settle in.

In the next five years, domestic air travel is set to by 25% a year (Aviation Daily). Many new companies have started their operations, led by India's first low cost carrier, Air Deccan. Air Deccan started with the promise that it would make flying affordable for the common man. Other airlines such as Kingfisher and SpiceJet followed suit.

The 2005 Paris Air Show was perhaps a coming out year for Indian aviation. Indian airline companies opened their hearts and wallets to Boeing and Airbus, ordering more than 200 jets from the two companies. The mid-size jet leader Embraer got a share of the pie as well.

Kingfisher became the first Indian airline to order the spanking new Airbus A380, which will be the world's largest commercial jet when it takes to the skies. Boeing predicts India will buy close to a 1000 new jets in the next 20 years.

Similarly, the Govt. of India signed open air agreements with a number of countries, namely the United States and Britain,

As always, the farsightedness of the Government of India came up short again. With the various statistics predicting the aviation boom and millions more taking to the skies, the Government failed to expand our airports to meet that growth.
Today, all, yes ALL, our airports in the country are small, cardboard boxes which smell, have a horrendous service and are ruled over by the Airports Authority of India, that old relic of the Socialist India that has as much a hand in this miserable state as the Government itself.
Indeed, as a forumer on Bharat-Rakshak.com forum remarked, "It was a sad day for Indian aviation when the AAI was formed."

Why is the AAI a relic? In this age of professionalism, it is one organization that is anwerable to nobody but itself. All major airports conform to international standards and strive to achieve them. Their efforts are graded by independent organizations who ensure the standards are maintained. In our great system, the AAI sets its own standards and has its own evaluation system. In other words, the AAI can get away with ensuring that our airports offer only the bare minimum, because there is nobody to tell them otherwise.

In keeping with their belief that they, and only they, are responsible for all things aviation in this country, they have raised a hue and cry over the greenfield Bangalore and Hyderabad International airports. Fortunately, the courts have cleared the way for these harrowed consortia to do their job in peace and the new airports are slated to be ready by 2008. The BIAL story showed us how even men who has been Prime Ministers of this country can stoop to such levels to protect their territory and make millions in the process. I talk of HD Devegowda, a copybook example of a narrow-visioned, selfish state level politician.

The biggest scoop is the restructuring of the New Delhi and Mumbai International airports. The saga surrounding these two is a whitepaper on how far India has yet to go in its liberalization and progress.

These two airports carry the majority of India's foreign traffic and thus their expansion and modernization becomes a matter of national security. Not for the AAI though. They would rather protect their interests and unions than actually care about this country. They are against these airports being given to private consortia to be restructured and run, because they believe they have the best expertise to do so. I know they think of us as gullible little lambs, but somebody must shatter their miserable little dream.

The AAI is not alone in this wet dream. One of the last bastions of the legacy of Mao and Lenin, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) fully supports the AAI proposal and is pressuring the government into giving them the contract. They have been demanding a rebid for the projects, but fortunately the concensus in the Cabinet itself is that the rebid path is a no go. Come to think of it, the HIAL and BIAL, despite their late, late start, escaped a pusillanimous Congress government propped up by the Communists.

Despite committees after committees being formed to find out a solution and two companies having already come out tops among the 9 (two withdrew), the left is unrelenting in its crusade to stall this entire process. Credit must be given here to the aviation Minister Praful Patel for his efforts to see this gets through, and to the PM for supporting this process. With the Govt. unable to meet the much touted deadline of December '05 for the contracts to be awarded, it is hoped that it will be done by January '06.

They say this nation is poised to rise to great heights, and i believe them. I believe our rise has begun, but it will take years before we reach the heights we aim for and dream about. That day will only come when the elected politicians of this country believe that only what is good for India is good for them.