Break the complacency barrier

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: One of the most visible signs of prosperity is airport traffic. Both the Chinese and Indian demand curves are on upswings, thanks to economic growth and booms in civil aviation. An interesting feature of civil aviation growth, however, is airport capacity, efficiency and profitable use thereof, to ensure that traffic does not get clogged and passengers don’t stumble on delays, either onground or in the air. Hence, the world over, there seems to be an inclination for decentralisation of traffic to avoid bottlenecks and delays by having more than one airport adjacent to big hubs and metros.

London has Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and London City airports. New York has JFK, La Guardia and Newark, NJ. Moscow has seven airports. Beijing has Beijing International and Nanyuan. Tokyo has Narita and Haneda. Lahore has Allama Iqbal and Walton. Islamabad has a new one coming up to accompany Chaklala.

Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, too, had two airports each once upon a time. But Delhi’s Safdarjung, which used to handle the Dakotas and Fokkers of Indian Airlines even in the 1960s, today looks like a haunted hamlet of a hunted hermit. Kolkata’s Behala airstrip, once a pioneering flying club, is the grazing ground of stray cattle. Mumbai’s Juhu is used mostly by helicopter operators and a few flying enthusiasts.

Although India was fortunate to inherit hundreds of airfields from the British after World War II, we have built only three airports of international standard since—Nedumbassery at Kochi, Shamsabad at Hyderabad and Devanahalli at Bangalore.

For five decades, India suffered the monopoly of Airports Authority of India on the ground and Indian Airlines in the air. Once we got private players, however, they appeared keen to put the clock back by subtle cartelisation to boost bottomlines. This is the sad story of Indian aviation.

Today, Kochi, Hyderabad and Bangalore are lucky to be twin airport cities. But the bad news is that whereas Kochi’s original airport has gone back to the custody of the Indian Navy, the old airports of Hyderabad and Bangalore appear to be dysfunctional.

Questions can be asked. Can the birth of a second sibling have a debilitating effect on the older child? A close look at the international scene would reveal that contemporary cities abroad are vying for twin or more airports, and there is little to suggest that the present Indian fashion to discard the state organisation makes any sense.