The passenger traffic has grown tremendously, registering more than 250 per cent growth over a decade. And enthused by the increasing traffic, the government has embarked upon developing non-metro airports to spur regional aviation which is growing at a healthy pace.

In the last four years, the number of operational airports in India has increased from 50 to almost 90, indicative of the rapid growth of the economy in general and the aviation sector in particular. The fact that new destinations are getting networked augurs well for the overall development of the country. “Airports are also catalysts of economic growth, being the very gateway to the nation. The Ministry through the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has embarked upon developing 60 airports, covering most of the states,” the Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Vayalar Ravi has said.

Enthused by the passenger traffic, the government has embarked upon developing non-metro airports to spur regional aviation which is growing at a healthy pace. During the last five years, aircraft movement at Indian airports increased at a CAGR of 15.4 per cent between 2004-05 and 2009-10. The passenger traffic has grown tremendously, registering more than 250 per cent growth over a decade, reaching 58 million in 2009-10, a substantial chunk contributed by non-metro sectors. The main factors contributing to this phenomenon include economic growth; new airport destinations; reasonable fares and increasing capacities of domestic private airlines.

Healthy passenger movement

As per AAI statistics for May 2011, the total passenger traffic during the month increased by 13.9 per cent as compared to May 2010. The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERA) has determined 12 airports as ‘major airports’ based on traffic and they include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Calicut, Dabolim, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and Thiruvananthapuram.

In 2010, domestic airlines in India flew about 44 million passengers of which 17 million were on the high-density city pairs of the top seven cities. The rest of the passenger movement has been from low-to-medium density markets.

The growth rates of traffic handled by different categories of airports:

There are 89 domestic and 16 international airports in the country. With the encouraging growth of low cost carriers in India, secondary and tertiary airports are to get increasingly active in the years to come.

And as and when the Civil Aviation Ministry’s proposal for setting up regional airlines materialises, there will be added momentum. Regional airlines have been defined as carriers with aircraft having less than 80 seats and which will operate exclusively on regional routes from any one metropolitan airport such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

To encourage regional airlines, the Ministry has suggested that the first airline to connect cities that are not linked by air should be exempt from all airport and navigation charges at both airports for the first year of operation. For regional airlines, navigation and landing charges often constitute up to 10 per cent of the overall costs.

There is a growing demand for no-frill and low-cost airports. At a recent seminar, a SpiceJet executive said, “We don’t need a Taj Mahal of an airport. What we need is basic infrastructure in place and with reasonable costs.” The high airport costs in some of the airports have been squeezing the airline finances and a few of the airlines are contemplating moving back to Terminal 1D in New Delhi as they find the costs too high at Terminal 3.

In a bid to encourage regional airlines and provide air links to small cities and towns, nearly 25 Greenfield airport projects (no-frill airports) have been identified for development by various states. This is besides the development of the 35 non-metro airports. A no-frill airport is built at a minimum cost and allows operation of small jets as well as slightly bigger aircraft like Boeing’s B737 or Airbus’ A320. The investment in such an airport could range from Rs. 40 crore to Rs. 100 crore. The places identified for the purpose include Hassan, Shimoga, Gulbarga, Bidar, Mysore (all in Karnataka), Shirdi, Jalgaon, Solapur, Akola (all in Maharashtra), Kannur (Kerala), Madurai, Tiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu), Rupsi (Assam), Ajmer, Mount Abu, Kailashar (Rajasthan), Behala, Cooch Behar, Malda (West Bengal), Jharsuguda (Orissa), Muzaffurpur (Bihar), Kamalpur (Tripura) and Passighat (Arunachal Pradesh).