'Need to focus on raising airport capacity'

New Delhi: A heated debate has broken out over aviation ministry's proposal to ease peak-hour congestion at Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore by increasing aircraft movement charges in those hours and reducing them in lean times.
Many airlines point out that hardly any carrier would leave their prime-time slots as the increased cost would be passed on to travellers.
Even the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Tuesday came out openly against this move as aviation minister Praful Patel defended it as a 'temporary' step.
For once, many in the industry are questioning the move to double aircraft movement charges from 7-10 am and 6-10 pm.
Air Deccan chief Captain Gopinath went to the extent of saying that separate charges would not have much impact on easing congestion" but would mean more money to airport operators"in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore."
The government should have lowered off-peak charges without hiking peak charges. Indian airports efficiency is very low and charges are very high. A single runway in Delhi can't handle over 35 flights in a hour and the need is to increase capacity,"he said.
The basic problem, point airlines, is that not many would pull out flights from peak hours and traffic would increase at off hours too.
06/03/07 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Mar 2007