Battling crippling airport infrastructure and consistent surge in number of passenger volumes, the government has mooted developing a comprehensive 25-year masterplan for airports. The development was revealed by Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, who was speaking with media representatives at the 2nd Aero Expo India 2017. “We are developing a comprehensive masterplan for our airports because traffic continues to grow strongly and will continue to do so. Even if we grow at 10 per cent we will see massive requirement as far as airport capacity is concerned,” Sinha said.
Recently released Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) report on the state of airports in the country has painted a dismal picture of airport infra in the country. India’s key aviation hubs, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai are nearing saturation. Meanwhile, several airports under the Airport Authority of India are already operating more aircraft than their designed capacity. Add to that, buoyed by growing demand, Indian carriers have ordered 500 aircraft slated to join the fleet in the coming years. Infrastructural challenges aside, an estimated sum of USD 45 billion would be required to create an additional capacity of handling 500-600 million passengers at its airports by 2030.
Faced with this multi fold conundrum, the government has initiated a blueprint for the next two and half decades.
