Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh today expressed concern over shrinkage in air passenger traffic numbers in the last three months but hoped that the buoyancy in the sector would lead to a spike in the long-run.
"In the past three months, the traffic numbers have fallen. Following the global economic downturn, there were worries about a downturn in the Indian economy. There were estimations about a fall in GDP growth and there were issues relating to high costs. And airlines and the hospitality industry are the first to suffer from this," Singh told the Economic Editors conference here.
"We hope that in the long-run the traffic will increase. It is bound to increase," he said.
Official figures have shown that in July-September, the air traffic has shrunk month-over-month by 9-11%.
However, between January-August this year, international passenger traffic grew by 15% over the same period last year and the number of passengers carried rose marginally from 39.63 million in 2011 to 39.82 million this year.
The overall losses of all Indian carriers totalled about Rs 10,000 crore, he said, adding, half of their debt related to aircraft purchase apart from massive working capital loans.
Giving a brief on various aspects of the civil aviation sector, the Minister said the government had undertaken a series of initiatives to further the growth of the sector.
In order to promote regional air connectivity, he said the government had approved creation of 15 greenfield airports and work on three of them -- at Mopa (Goa), Navi Mumbai and Kannur -- is likely to begin by the end of this fiscal.
A total of Rs 24,132 crore would be made available for airport development in the 12th Plan period, including Rs 17,500 crore investment in the central sector.
To promote connectivity to Tier-II and Tier-III cities, he said changes were being made in the Route Dispersal Guidelines, which make it mandatory for all Indian airlines to operate to socially-important but financially unviable routes in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir and A&N Islands.
Singh said the Aircraft Acquisition Policy was also being amended to "nudge" the Indian carriers to buy smaller planes to operate to smaller cities.
