Indian skies inviting, but no takers for airlines

Beijing: With a potential air market of hundreds of millions of people, airlines ought to be hammering on India's door - yet global airline executives say it would be madness to invest in a domestic carrier there, even if they were allowed to.
Although India's economy is not the investor darling it was some years ago, the 1.2 billion population includes a sizeable middle class with increasing disposable income and the desire to go places. It's a sprawling nation, trains are packed and their safety record is poor, so the potential for air travel is huge.
But there was little enthusiasm for India at a major airlines summit in Beijing this week. "Anybody who is looking at India now is going to say it's going to be an extremely difficult proposition. There is a reward, access to a vast market, but the execution of that is the question," Tim Clark, president of Dubai's Emirates Airlines, told Reuters.
"You cannot afford to let civil aviation be a lame duck, not in something the size of India. You will have to find a way to make it work."
13/06/12 Reuters/IBN Live

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Categories: Foreign Jun 2012, Indian Aviation- In General Jun 2012