India plans to have 500 airports by 2020

India's Civil Aviation Ministry has set a target of having 500 operational airports in the next 12 years, according to a report by Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA).
CAPA said this will include the ongoing redevelopment of currently unused airports or little used airports and development of greenfield and cargo airports.
Presently, India has only 80 fully functional airports equipped to handle scheduled commercial, charter and defence services.
Presently, India has only 80 fully functional airports equipped to handle scheduled commercial, charter and defence services.
In addition, there are another 368 landing strips that function as makeshift airports for limited purposes. As many as 156 belong to the defence or semi-defence sectors and various state governments while 63 are owned by the private sector.
The CAPA report states that virtually every district has some form of air service connectivity or the other, either a full-fledged airport or basic landing and takeoff facility.
05/02/08 Indo-Asian News Service/Hindustan Times

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Categories: airports Feb 2008