India's government is pressing ahead with wide-ranging airport upgrade initiatives despite recent setbacks related to all-new airports in two major cities.
The government has been overseeing an upgrade programme covering airports in all six of the country's major cities as well as in 35 secondary cities to help cope with huge growth in domestic air travel since 2003. It will spend an estimated $9 billion on the upgrades over the next five years and it hopes it can attract foreign groups to take part.
Recently the opening of privately built airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad hit snags amid opposition from employees of state-owned Airports Authority of India. The new Hyderabad airport was due to have opened on 16 March but there was a one-week delay after the government withdrew earlier approvals. This came after AAI employees went on strike to protest against the closure of the existing airport in the city.
At Bangalore, the planned 30 March new airport opening was pushed back to 11 May, also as a result of AAI employee opposition, and this was then delayed further after a court ordered the private company that built it and the government to try to reach agreement on keeping the existing airport open in some form.
The government asked for aircraft under 80 seats to be allowed to continue operating from the old airport but no deal was reached. The new airport was expected to open in late May.
Despite the setbacks, the government says it is still moving steadily forward with ambitious development plans and it intends to continue inviting private companies to take over the operation of many airports. At Amritsar and Udaipur, for example, it recently shortlisted consortia that have been approved to bid for the right to operate airports there.
Two years ago private sector consortia took over the country's two busiest airports, at Delhi and Mumbai, and extensive upgrade projects are now underway.
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Source: Airline Business