Aviation sector in infrastructure logjam

New Delhi: Airlines waste about Rs 300 crore annually because they have to hover for 15 to 30 minutes over major airports like Delhi and Mumbai.

The reason being that there aren't enough runways or parking bays to accommodate these aircrafts.

The aviation sector may be booming in India but when it comes to infrastructure there is a serious logjam.

Delhi airport is capable of handling 1,200 passengers an hour but during peak hours the airport has to handle about 8,000 passengers an hour.

The situation is in such a bad state when only seven private airlines operate out of this terminal. So one wonders what would happen when three more airlines join the fray in about a year?s time.

"Expansion is on, new parking bays are being built. Non-metro airports are being upgarded in Hyderabad and Bangalore but these will only be ready by 2008," Siddhanta Sharma, CEO Spicejet said.

But the travails of a passenger doesn't end with boarding the aircraft and leaving the terminal behind.

There's only one runway for take off and landing and even small aircraft use the main runway, though they can make do with a smaller one.

As a result most aircraft spend about one and half minutes idling on the runway. Ideally it should be only 20 seconds and this leads to a domino-effect of delays of almost all planes.

These aircrafts have to hover an extra 15 minutes over the airport before they get permission to land.

On an average a large aircraft burns Rs 1,500 of fuel for every minute it flies, so the extra minutes of hovering leads to excess expenditure in crores.

The airport authority is planning to have a parallel runway in Delhi and increase the number of parking bays. But experts say that enough is not being done.

"The growth in domestic air travel will be 25 per cent this year. International traffic will increase by 20 per cent and our preparation is inadequate," Kapil Kaul, CEO (India), CAPA said.

Problems are compounded by a severe shortage of pilots and the government is trying to ease the shortage by increasing the retirement age of pilots from 61 to 65 years.

But till all these issues are not sorted out passengers will continue to have a bumpy ride.