New Delhi: There's good news for air travelers fed up with paying hefty user charges to fly in and out of prohibitively expensive airports like those in Delhi and Mumbai. Aviation secretary Ashok Lavasa has directed Airports Authority of India (AAI) to create a blueprint for next-gen low-cost airports. He has asked authority for doubling its non-aeronautical revenue in a year.
Lavasa, who is known for his environmental concerns, has asked AAI to keep the air conditioning and security area to the barest minimum in its blueprint for budget airports as these two items account for a lion's share in an airport's overall expenses. "The steel-and-glass structure for airports copied mindlessly from the cooler west for airports in India has led to AC power bills shooting up like crazy. That's a mistake that cannot be replicated at budget airports or they would not turn out to be low-cost models," said an official. AAI, which is among a long list of key aviation agencies kept headless by UPA-II, has, however, been told not to compromise on the technical and security-related issues.
29/04/14 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
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Lavasa, who is known for his environmental concerns, has asked AAI to keep the air conditioning and security area to the barest minimum in its blueprint for budget airports as these two items account for a lion's share in an airport's overall expenses. "The steel-and-glass structure for airports copied mindlessly from the cooler west for airports in India has led to AC power bills shooting up like crazy. That's a mistake that cannot be replicated at budget airports or they would not turn out to be low-cost models," said an official. AAI, which is among a long list of key aviation agencies kept headless by UPA-II, has, however, been told not to compromise on the technical and security-related issues.
29/04/14 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
