S.O.S. Airport

A Jet Airways official claims that each day costs them equivalent to 12 hours of extra flying time in terms of money. "We can operate an extra flight at that cost," he says. To compensate for the loss, the private airlines had started charging an additional Rs 150 on each ticket for peak-hour travel. The ministry clamped down on this in March following the intervention of the Delhi High Court. A senior civil aviation ministry official told Outlook that his ministry had been requesting several carriers to consider shifting some of their operations to non-peak hours to ease the pressure during the peak hours. But that is not seen as profitable by many airlines.

At the level of infrastructure, the AAI officials point out that a third runway is likely to be ready in Delhi by next year. The long-pending work on it was delayed as it became a part of the larger airport modernisation plan, which itself had got delayed. Says a civil aviation ministry official: "Now it is being impressed upon the DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited) that the work must be expedited. Not just the runway but the entire airport modernisation including infrastructure, baggage-handling and passenger amenities."

The clamour from both passengers and airlines alike is for improved infrastructure at airports. At several meetings, Union civil aviation minister Praful Patel has described the plan to develop airports and the opposition to it as "typically Indian". According to him, unlike in China where infrastructure is first put in place before services are introduced, India likes to put the cart before the horse. Which is perhaps why the government has given the go-ahead for several new airlines even before improving the facilities at the airports from where they are supposed to operate. It is hoped that we don't have to hover over the answers too long.