Sunday, January 05, 2020

India set to trigger revival of global aviation sector

New Delhi :The success of the global aviation sector now hinges on Asia and India occupies a prime spot in it. As more and more Asian economies are creating affluent middle classes, the aviation sector is gearing to welcome millions of them on board. The civil aviation industry in India has emerged as one of the fastest growing industries in the country during the last three years. India is currently considered the third largest domestic civil aviation market in the world and is expected to overtake United Kingdom to become the third largest air passenger market by 2024.

India’s aviation industry is largely untapped with huge growth opportunities, considering that air transport is still expensive for majority of the country’s population, of which nearly 40% is the upwardly mobile middle class.  To cater to the rising air traffic, the Government of India has been working towards increasing the number of airports. As of March 2019, India has 103 operational airports. India has envisaged increasing the number of operational airports to 190-200 in the near future. Further, the rising demand in the sector has pushed the number of airplanes operating in the sector. As of July 2018, there were nearly 620 aircraft being operated by scheduled airline operators in India. The number of airplanes is expected to grow to 1,100 planes by 2027.

Despite its woes, national carrier Air India is still the backbone of the industry. The Maharaja now owns 120 aircraft, half of which are owned and the rest leased. It runs a large number of domestic routes and flies to 40-50 international destinations. India’s national carrier is looking for a suitable bidder to overhaul the entire system. Despite all its woes, it is still fueling growth and providing a tough race for the private sector to meet the demands in the market. The nine major Indian carriers are cobbling new strategies and procuring modern aircraft to face the challenges. They together took deliveries of over 120 planes comprising both twin and single aisle as well as regional jets in the just-concluded year as against 88 planes inducted in 2017. Domestic passenger traffic has been growing at about 20% for more than four years now and capacity addition along with other factors has played a key role in this robust growth. Majority of the planes inducted by the carriers last year, according to available figures, were Airbus A320 Neos, with four carriers—IndiGo, GoAir, Air India and Vistara—taking deliveries of more than 60 of these planes besides other types of aircraft. At present, these carriers together have over 660 planes. Budget carrier IndiGo has 206 planes including A320 Neos, while both Air India and Jet Airways have 125 and 124 aircraft, respectively, in their fleets.
04/01/20 Kamal Shah/Sunday Guardian Live
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

0 comments:

Post a Comment