India is gearing up for more planes in its skies

From investing billions of dollars in new airports to inducting more air traffic controllers, India is pulling out all the stops to improve its aviation infrastructure as it gears up to welcome the hundreds of new planes that its airlines have ordered.

The world’s fastest-growing aviation market is expected to invest Rs 99,000 crore ($12 billion) and will have 220 airports by 2025, versus 148 currently, agencies reported, in a bid to ease the load on existing infrastructure. It will also appoint more regulators and open new flying schools, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said at the CAPA India aviation summit on Monday.

“Although government plans seem extremely ambitious and staggering, airport congestion is a reality today and widely criticised, despite the presence of seasoned private airport companies,” said Mark Martin, the CEO at aviation consultancy Martin Consulting LLC.

All signs point to an urgent need to match India’s infrastructure with the post-Covid travel boom.

After Air India’s record deal for 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing, India's largest airline Indigo and newest player Akasa Air are expected to place triple-digit orders by the end of the year. As of March 2023, Indian airlines had placed orders for over 1,200 aircraft, the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation India said on Monday.

While many welcomed the plans, they worried more about execution.

“At present, there is no coordination across the industry. Each airline pursues its individual business, but relevant industry stakeholders have no idea what to prepare for in terms of requirements for parking bays, skills, air traffic controllers, security staff, aircraft inspectors, and other safety and regulatory functions,” CAPA India CEO and Director Kapil Kaul said on Monday. “Without effective medium and long-term planning, strategic risks will increase.”

Some such as Air India CEO Campbell Wilson looked at it differently.

“Air India didn't have a publically stated growth ambition plan in the past. Where was the evidence, and where was the aircraft? Why would airport owners invest?,” Wilson told reporters. “There was no roadmap and no clarity on the principal customer strategy. Now that there's clarity, there's no doubt there will be interest from infrastructure providers.”

Despite the pockets of optimism, there was no doubt that India needed to do more to become a global aviation hub.

“Airport developments take at least four years to fructify. The government needs to make tangible infrastructure changes right now that show results with passenger quality indexes and airport efficiency,” Martin added.

Problems galore

One of the main problems airlines face is the congestion on airport runways.

“It takes an average aircraft at least 30-45 minutes to depart because we don't have adequate runways and taxiways for peak operations," Martin said.

Inadequate infrastructure leads to higher runway occupancy time (ROT), congestion, delay in flights, passenger inconvenience, fatigue (in pilots), increased fuel wastage and carbon emissions, and overall cost to the airline operators.

The lack of adequate bays for overnight parking of aircraft is also a serious issue.

“With so many aircraft coming in, the question arises where are you going to park them at night time?,” said Capt Sanjay Karve NM, the chief pilot and accountable manager for the Maharashtra government.

Some also urged the government to plan for the long term.

“Planning is the key, and now is the time,” Bharatforge’s former head of aviation, Capt. Sandeep Thakre, said, highlighting how the infrastructure should be built for the next 50 years, and not for three to five years.

To be fair, some airports are doing better than the others to prepare for the future.

For instance, Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) is relying on an independent parallel runway and associated taxiways to cater to over 80 air transport movements (ATMs) per hour by 2030, its chief strategy & development officer Satyaki Raghunath told DH. “This will allow us to handle over 575,000 ATMs and over 90 million passengers annually.”

With the use of Airport Collaborative Decision Making software, Mumbai airport has minimum taxi time, holding time and pushback times despite a massive influx on a daily basis, a spokesperson at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport said.