Government mulling Airport Economic Regulatory Authority

The government is considering creation of a an Airport Economic Regulatory Authority to ensure a level playing field for all airport developers in the country, according to Ministry of civil aviation joint secretary K N Srivastav.

Presenting an overview of the Indian aviation scenario at the 'Look South 2007' conference and exhibition, which concluded here on Saturday, Srivastav said that in the next five years over 300 new aircraft would be added to India's fleet, thereby putting pressure on airport infrastructure and lending urgency to the requirement of about 5,000 additional pilots, apart from other airport staff.

He said that such high levels of growth would make it necessary for the government to operationalise the 300 airstrips that were currently available but were lying unused, apart from the need to take airport development to smaller cities of India.

He added that with international airports coming up in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Puducherry and existing ones being upgraded and modernised, the aviation scene was hotting up in south India.

Sharing his perspective of the challenges being faced by India in terms of air connectivity, Singapore Airlines general manager Chai Woo Foo stated that at present there was no real open skies policy in India even though there had been liberalisation in some routes.

He said the south Indian region needed to put itself on the global aviation map for which it would have to connect to major world destinations and enhance flight frequency. The field also should be opened for international players to augment their services to India.

Liberal open skies, Foo said, would lead to greater connectivity, encourage tourism, generate employment and boost trade and commerce. For the creation of south India as an aviation hub, he suggested encouragement of airline-airport partnerships and measures taken to attract greater frequencies.

T Srinagesh, chief operating officer of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited, listed out seven key challenges faced by airports today.

These include constraints for expansion, non-availability of land and connecting infrastructure, need for large investment, poor service standard as evidenced by IATA ranking, ageing infrastructure, inadequate terminals, underdeveloped remote area and feeder airports and commercial viability.

He underlined the need to accelerate modernization of 35 non-metro airports, financial support by way of long term financing (15-20 years), low interest rates, rationalisation of taxes and tax holidays, sources of funding to be developed (like bond market), development of multi-modal connectivity to the airports, and more tourism circuit to be promoted.