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.

If Moscow has seven airports, London four and even Lahore two, there is no reason that we cannot have multiple airports in full operation. Japan is an interesting case. Civil aviation airports there are governed by the country’s aeronautical law for safety purposes, by the noise prevention law for urban harmony and by the airport development law for economic development purposes. Thus, Japanese airports are grouped into three legal classifications. First-class airports nominally handle international flights. So when the new Narita (Tokyo) and Kansai (Osaka) airports were completed, the old airports of Tokyo (Haneda) and Osaka (Itami) stopped intercontinental flights but did not close down. Instead, they handled other flights. Japan now has 24 second class airports and 56 third class airports, with two more being built.

If India is to sustain its aviation growth, it has to plan its infrastructure accordingly. If a recent press report about the Indian aim of having 500 airports by 2020 is to be taken seriously, then it would surely need enormous investment and Herculean effort. Quickly. For, the delays will only get longer, and time is of the essence here.

As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently said about Sino-Indian relations, “There is enough space for both China and India in this world to coexist.” The same is true of old and new airports. They can and should coexist.