A K Bhattacharya: Bottlenecks in the sky

RAISINA HILL

The increase in the flying time is a little less if the landing time at the New Delhi airport is in the afternoon. But if your plane is scheduled to land in the evening, you may rest assured that it would land at least 30 minutes after the scheduled time of arrival even if its take-off was on schedule.

The increased flying time is primarily due to congestion at the Delhi airport. There are more planes waiting to land at Delhi than the airport infrastructure can cope with.

So, the planes are made to circle over Delhi before they can be given the permission to land. This wait in the skies can often be as long as 30 minutes.

Smarter airlines have now decided that their planes destined for New Delhi will take off only after ascertaining from the Delhi air traffic controller that its wait in the skies before being allowed to land will be shorter than usual.

For every extra minute an airline has to keep its planes flying as a result of this congestion, it incurs an additional fuel cost Rs 6,000 per aircraft.

This is a huge additional cost for airlines already hit hard by the steady northward movement of aviation turbine fuel prices. Some time back, the civil aviation ministry took a few initiatives to reduce the waiting period for planes in the sky.

It reduced the mandatory distance each aircraft is required to maintain with the other aircraft while flying. It made some difference. But the congestion problem is still not solved and the airlines continue to bleed, even as travellers are inconvenienced by such delays.

If you talk to airline industry representatives, you will get the impression that the civil aviation ministry is aware of this problem, but it offers no concrete solution, at least, in the medium term.

Civil aviation ministry officials admit that the congestion can be reduced only when a new runway is constructed in Delhi. The congestion problem in the Mumbai airport is less severe.

But the capacity to handle more planes at the busy morning and evening hours is limited and there is need to debottleneck it by constructing a new runway and enhancing other infrastructure facilities at the airport.

But new runways in Mumbai and Delhi cannot be constructed immediately. They will take some time. The airlines are aware of these problems and are making suitable alternative arrangements.

But what has upset the airlines more is that the civil aviation ministry does not seem to recognise the magnitude of this problem. Which is why, according to them, the ministry is not only allowing more domestic airlines to start their flights, but has extended the open sky policy to more countries such as the US.

More airlines from the US would mean more flights vying for a landing slot in the evening hours in Delhi and Mumbai. With the airport capacity constraint not getting resolved in the next one year, the airlines' travails will only increase.

What the civil aviation ministry should do is to immediately set in motion a process by which the plan to upgrade the aircraft handling capacity of the airports in Delhi and Mumbai is increased substantially.

This might require additional investment by the Airports Authority of India in creating new infrastructure facility at the two airports.

The Airports Authority of India may be reluctant to make fresh investments in the Delhi and Mumbai airports, as these are to be privatised soon and the private partners might be expected to bring in the additional resources needed to increase the capacity.

That is why the civil aviation ministry must step in and persuade the Airports Authority of India not to delay any fresh investment decisions. Both the Delhi and Mumbai airports present an ironical situation.

They need to immediately increase their capacity to handle aircraft. But the decision to privatise them has slowed down that process, even though the demand on the services provided by them is rising rapidly with more flights per day and more airlines flying to the two cities.

Somebody in the government should take a holistic view. It is not enough to get more airlines to fly more aircraft to different cities in India to improve air connectivity.

Equally important is to increase the infrastructure facilities available to handle the increased number of flights. Civil Aviation Minister

Praful Patel has done a commendable job by increasing competition in this sector, which has resulted in lower fares and more choice for the Indian air traveller.

These benefits can be sustainable only if the infrastructure to handle more airlines is also beefed up without any further delay.