Safety fears take off in fastest-growing aviation market

New Delhi: Last month, in separate incidents, two ageing Air India aircraft, a Boeing 767 and an Airbus 310, were forced to make emergency landings at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport after suffering problems with their arthritic landing gear. No passengers were hurt but many were scared witless.
Moreover, images of one of the aircraft with its nose planted into the ground have not only dented the national flag carrier's reputation ahead of an expected initial public offering but also raised worrying questions about safety standards in the world's fastest-growing aviation market.
The close shaves have highlighted a delicate transition under way at the airline and within the aviation sector as a whole. Like Indian Airlines, the domestic carrier with which it is on the point of merging, Air India is awaiting the arrival of dozens of new aircraft that it hopes will reverse years of under-investment and precipitous declines in market share.
A similar race against time is under way at Indian airports. In the 12 months to March 31.2006, Indian airlines carried 25.5m domestic passengers (up 27.9 per cent year-on-year) and 22.4m international passengers (up 15.1 per cent). Between April and September 2006, however, amid a flurry of new entrants to the sector, domestic traffic growth accelerated to more than 45 per cent.
02/05/07 von Jo Johnson/Financial Times Deutschland, Germany

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Categories: General Aviation May 2007, Safety May 2007