The Indian aviation industry, which suffered a slump in the wake of the global economic slowdown has been witnessing a resurgence with a 20 per cent increase in air passenger traffic, Vijay Mallya, Chairman of Kingfisher Airlines, said.
The civil aviation industry, which was impacted to a great extent by global meltdown in 2008-09, has seen a "revival, a resurgence post that period, with the passenger traffic increasing by 20 per cent" he said.
He was speaking after inaugurating the two-day national convention on "Frontiers of Aeronautical Technologies", organised by Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI) on the occasion of its 61st AGM here today.
Mallya, also President of AeSI, highlighted the urgent need to create Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) centres in the country as several airlines were going to international centres to conduct the MRO tests.
He further called for setting up a National Aeronautics Commission to bring all research and development in aeronautics under one umbrella.
"A proposal in this regard has already been submitted to the Centre but the project has not taken off. This is a high priority programme which needs to be pursued", Mallya said.
He said government and private sector must partner with each other not only in creating civil aviation infrastructure but also to address critical issues such as high taxation, input costs and regulations, faced by the industry.
Lamenting that flying clubs in the country had almost become redundant, Governor H R Bhardwaj stressed the need to have revive these clubs and also establish more flying clubs to train pilots domestically.
