Merged PSU airline may not be a true giant

Though the government's aim is to create an airline behemoth to take on Asian tigers such as Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways, the merged entity of Air-India and Indian Airlines does not even dominate the domestic skies in many key parameters.

India's private sector carriers have already become a force to reckon with and they could gain further once more players are allowed to fly international routes.

The total fleet of the unified entity will constitute 30 per cent of the total number of aircaft owned by domestic carriers. While the merged entity's turnover will be over 50 per cent of the aggregate turnover of the domestic aviation sector, it would carry only 26 per cent of the domestic air travellers. In the last financial year, the combined revenue of the two was nearly Rs 16,000 crore while the number of passengers stood at 11.7 million. 

	A-1	I-A	MERGED ENTITY	SHARE IN INDUSTRY
Aircraft	48	74	122	30.5
Flights a day	35	300	335	25.75
Revenue (Rs cr)	9,677	6000	16000	53
Parking Slots*	20	20	40	25
Engg services	3	2	5	62.5
Passengers (In mn)	4.7	7	11.7	26
Profit (Rs cr)	16.5	49.5	66	"�
New Aircraft Order	68	43	111	31.71
*Mumbai + Delhi

However, in terms of airport infrastructure, the merged entity will have a larger share with over 70 per cent of the real estate at airports (like parking bays, hangars and maintenance slots) in Mumbai and Delhi under it.

Going by the current statistics, the company will control only 25 per cent of parking bays at Delhi and Mumbai airports. It would, however, have over 60 per cent of all the engineering services centres in the country. "Passengers carried is less when compared with other majors in the Southeast Asia," an industry analyst said. Last year, Singapore Airlines handled over 17 million passengers with just 90 airplanes.