No-frills airports may not take off

Hyderabad: Even as Indian Railways is talking about emulating airports in providing comforts and a pleasant travel experience to its passengers, the aviation industry appears to have found the solution to all its ills by having railway station-like airports, with bare minimum or no comforts.

“We need to develop railway station like no frills airports in tier-2 and tier-3 cities to promote air travel,” said Mr Ashok Lavasa, civil aviation secretary, during the just concluded India Aviation 2014.

The issue had also come up prominently during the CEO Conclave with minister Ajit Singh. Airlines have blamed rising airport charges as one of the reasons for stunted growth of aviation in the country.

According to civil aviation ministry officials, the no-frills airport will not have any comforts that people expect from an airport. It will have no air-conditioning, bare minimum security, and also no swanky interiors. “It will be just an airstrip and a couple of waiting rooms,” officials said.

Though the concept is worth discussion, experts feel that it requires a lot of investment, from either private sector or Airports Authority of India (AAI). Private developers of some big airports are already in losses.

“Private companies may not be interested in developing an airport, which caters to just a few hundreds of people, while Airports Autho-rity of India does not have funds to invest,” Mr Stephen C. Beatty, Head, Global Infrastructure (Americas and India), KPMG, told this correspondent. The aviation sector needs $12.1 billion ('73,810 crore) during the 12th Plan period.

But AAI, the state-run airport developer and operator, has Rs 7,600 crore in reserves and surplus, while posted a profit of '859 crore, as per the latest information available on its website.

“No-frills airports may also have perceptional problem, due to people’s expectations of a certain degree of comforts,” Mr Beatty cautioned. “Another expense which airports incur is on security. And you can’t have an airport without security.”

According to Mr Beatty, globally state governments or local city governments take the lead in developing airports as private companies won’t be interested in non-viable business ventures.

“All countries with vast land mass have faced this problem. In the United States, the state governments have converted military airports built during the World War-II into the civilian airports. Another large country, Brazil, is also facing similar problem as India, in developing its airports,” he explained.

Brazil has two major airports, the Galeão international airport in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte’s Confins airport, while the rest of the country has poor air connectivity. The attempts to bring in private sector to develop regional airports in the laregst Latin American country have failed so far due to the government’s measures to curb profits of airport developers.

The solution to this problem, according to him, lies in governments operationalising unused airstrips in the country. “At present, there are around 450 used/un-used/abandoned airports and airstrips spread all over the country. About 225 of them are owned by state governments or by private operators,” said a knowledge paper was on Enha-ncing Air Connectivity prepared in association with ministry of aviation, FICCI and KPMG.