Airlines flying towards infrastructure airpocket

Bangalore: Air travel demand has picked up beyond everyone’s expectations and airlines are gearing to fly high on it but inadequate aviation infrastructure could play the spoilsport.
And this is giving the local industry a sense of dejá vu.
A similar situation had played out for the domestic air carriers between 2005 and 2007, when demand had soared while creation of runways, parking bays, airport terminals and others such facilities had pathetically lagged behind.
Ankur Bhatia, executive director of travel conglomerate Bird Group, said unless the pace of infrastructure development catches up with the swift rate of growth in demand, airlines will not be able to tap the full potential of the growth.
“We are not really there (in terms of infrastructure) to take full advantage of the growth in the air travel. This could mute the growth of the (airline) companies like in the past (2005-2007) and could come in the way of their expansion plan,” he said.
Samyukth Sridharan, chief commercial officer of SpiceJet Ltd, believes airlines would especially feel constraint on the Mumbai route, where there was no scope for further expansion due to insufficient infrastructure.
13/10/10 Praveena Sharma/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Oct 2010