Modernisation of airports is capital intensive and as regional aviation would directly benefit the states within which the airports are located, state governments should seize the initiative

The second wave of resurgence in Indian aviation which can be traced back to roughly the year 2005 brought a gradual realisation that the extent of benefit that the national economy as also the air traveller would derive from aviation would be directly proportional to the reach of the supporting infrastructure. It was evident from the staggering numbers of aircraft being ordered by airlines, that capacity was not going to be a problem. However, an interrogation mark hovered ominously over the pace of infrastructural developments that was needed to keep up with the frenetic pace of induction of new aircraft by airlines on a high, both old and new. Despite several initiatives by the government towards expanding the base that civil aviation was to serve, the intent has not matched the action and the pace of growth remains stunted for regional airports, all “non-metro” by definition.

During the latter half of 2007, the apprehension on the part of the government that smaller cities and towns would remain largely bereft of benefits of the air travel bonanza that was imminent, led to the promulgation of the policy on regional aviation. The policy recognised the need to promote air connectivity between specific regions and to enable more efficient air travel within the region, as well as linking such regions and expand air travel services with Tier II and Tier III cities within the country’s aviation network. For the purpose of this policy, the airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad were termed as metro airports and the regions were identified as North, South, West, East/ Northeast, coinciding with the Flight Information Regions (FIRs). The airports within a region were specified by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for the respective regions.

A scheduled air transport service was described as an air transport service undertaken between the same two or more places and operated according to a published time table or with flights so regular or frequent that they constitute a recognisably systematic series, each flight being open to use by the public. In contrast, a scheduled regional air transport service was defined as a scheduled air transport service which operated primarily in a designated region and which on grounds of operational and commercial exigencies, was allowed to operate from its designated region to airports in other regions, except the metro airports of other regions. The regional airlines were not permitted to operate on Category I routes (See Box).

The regional airlines of the southern region which has three metros were allowed to operate between the metros within the southern region namely Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. Scheduled regional airlines did not fall under the purview of route dispersal guidelines and thus were prohibited from trading off their ASKM on Category II, IIA and III routes with scheduled operators. As can be seen, the spirit behind the government’s initiative was to bolster airline connectivity to the non-metro airports. However, the gap between the high rate of growth of airlines and the tardy pace of development of aviation infrastructure continued to widen impinging on the boom in the airline industry. There is an imperative need to accelerate the pace of development of aviation infrastructure in order that the full capacity of aviation industry is exploited.

Vision 2020, a wishful document produced by the Ministry of Civil Aviation envisages 500 operational airports with almost every district having one, albeit a small one, by 2020. Thanks to the Second World War, India has a large number of airstrips strewn all over the country. If all these are included, the total number of airports in the country is 451. However, some of these are unusable and some are fit for use only by very small aircraft. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) puts the number of active “airports” in India at 136; of these, 94 are owned by AAI and the remaining are either under the Ministry of Defence or owned privately or by state governments.