Fixing India’s airports: It needs more world-class terminals

Source: The post is based on the article “Fixing India’s airports: It needs more world-class terminals” published in the Business Standard on 13^th November 2022.

Syllabus: GS – 3 – Infrastructure.

Relevance: About the present condition of Indian airports.

News: Recent visit of the Union Civil Aviation Minister to Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) has resulted in few minor changes to processes at the airport. A large proportion of the plan consists of asking airlines to cancel or move flights. But this is not a sustainable solution.

What are the challenges faced by Indian Airports?

-Despite various attempts to increase airport capacity, the ability of India’s terminals to absorb passenger growth is lacking.

–Poor processes, customer-unfriendly approach, and additional red tape have reduced effective airport capacity in recent years.

-There is not enough manpower and checkpoints are poorly manned. So, additional checkpoints are being introduced. This resulted in long queues for passengers. For instance, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has not assigned enough manpower.

–Under-provision of infrastructure: For example, the newly built airport for north Goa at Mopa is supposed to be able to handle only 4.4 million passengers a year. This is less than the number of passengers passing through another airport at Dabolim currently.

–Low terminal count: Soon, Delhi and Mumbai will both be among the 10 busiest airports in the world. Their global peers have half a dozen terminals to aid passenger movements. On the other hand, Delhi has only one world-class terminal, Terminal 3, and that is now more than 10 years old.

What should be done to improve the smooth functioning of Indian Airports?

Improve manpower: This has to be done from immigration officials to the CISF to the airport authority to operators to ground-handling companies to airlines

Improve capacity: Like their global peers, all metropolitan cities in India should have at least two airports with at least six to seven terminals among them.

Further, India should create a long-term plan for airport sustainability.