Airlines urged to connect smaller cities to beat downturn

Hyderabad : The civil aviation sector should look for business opportunities in the economic downturn through innovation, ensuring more connectivity to smaller cities and targeting the middle class, a top government official said on Monday.
Civil Aviation Secretary Madhavan Nambiar called upon the aviation sector to replicate the success of the telecommunication industry by spreading its reach through this vast country.
"The at least 30 crore-strong middle class should be able to utilise this sector to spur its growth," he said.
Mr. Nambiar was addressing the leaders forum at Seventh Routes Asia, a premier event for the airlines and airports in Asia Pacific region, which began here on Sunday.
He underlined the need for the aviation sector to market well and play a stimulating role in India's emergence as a global superpower.
Mr. Nambiar pointed out that the northeast was an under-served area where the Airports Authority of India (AAI) was incurring a loss of Rs.100 crore on airports. The aviation secretary asked the airlines to work with the AAI to make the airports sustainable.
According to Mr. Nambiar, the sector is suffering from a phenomenon of over capacity on trunk routes and under capacity on non-trunk routes.
He pointed out that the sector in India had an enormous five-year long rally in civil aviation, witnessing unprecedented growth of the order of around 20-25 per cent per annum.
Out of 89 operational airports in the public sector, almost 60 airports have been taken up for extensive development work, Mr. Nambiar said.
30/03/09 IANS/The Hindu

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Categories: Airports Mar 2009, Indian Aviation- In General Mar 2009