Chennai airport among 40 operating without licence

Chennai: Lost in the din of debates on air safety and claims of aerodrome modernization is a fact known only to a few even in aviation circles: Only eight of the more than 50 operational airports in the country have the mandatory licences issued by the Director-General of Civil Aviation. Airports without a licence include those at Chennai, Kolkata, Madurai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Thiruvananthapuram.
The last airport to see its licence lapse was the Bajpe airport in Mangalore that had a provisional licence at the time of the Air India Express crash, which claimed 158 lives on May 22. Its licence expired on June 15.
Not having a licence means that the airport does not conform to Indian Aircraft Rules, 1937, or the International Civil Aviation Organization's safety standards. The immediate fallout, experts say, could be that insurance companies may not be liable to pay compensation in case of an accident. Such non-compliance could prove costly for Indian aviation, which the US Federal Administration (FAA) has already threatened to downgrade from the current top billing to sub-Saharan Africa levels.
While the DGCA website has listed 18 private use' airports and 23 public use' ones as having licences (till December 31, 2009), the latest list of licenced airports accessed by TOI shows that only eight have their licences renewed.
DGCA issues licences to airports which are supposed to meet a number of criteria, including adherence to ICAO Annex 24 safety norms. Though the 1937 rules specify the need for a licence, DGCA called for its strict implementation only in 2006 just as private airports were coming up. While private airports in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi have licences, a majority of airports operated by AAI do not meet the statutory requirement.
25/06/10 Arun Ram/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jun 2010