Small-town India grows wings again

New Delhi: With the Indian economy improving, latest city-wise air traffic figures collected by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) show that the metros reported a maximum of 33.4% growth this August over last August. But smaller town flyers — who had almost vanished in the slowdown — are now back with a vengeance and reporting huge growth numbers.
For instance, Jaipur saw over a lakh flyers this August while the figure was just 56,738 last August, a growth of 81.5%. Port Blair saw the number jump by 74% from 17,754 to almost 31,000 this August. Patna saw a jump of 79%. The highest growth was reported in sun city Jodhpur with a huge 522% with the number going from just 1,583 to 9,847. The second highest jump was 198.3%.
The revived growth saw airlines reintroducing flights cancelled during the slowdown. Metros, on the other hand, had a higher base and so the growth was limited to about 30%. With a new runway and enhanced aircraft handling capacity, Delhi saw a jump of 28% while Kolkata led the metro pack at 33.4%.
Clearly the authorities are heaving a sigh of relief at this growth as the sudden slump had led to growth plans of the entire Indian aviation industry going awry. First, airlines cried foul and then airport managements — who are spending thousands of crores to build new infrastructure — said the revenue had fallen so much with traffic that their plans were getting stuck. Then the aviation ministry allowed even Delhi and Mumbai airport managements to levy steep user fees on passengers.
19/11/09 Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2009