Beyond the big cities, in remote towns and district headquarters, air connectivity is a distant dream. But what if politicians devised grand airport plans to propel those regions into global aviation maps, fast-tracking development? This frenzy has gripped Karnataka, even as big questions are being raised about such mega projects’ economic viability and utility.
Commercial viability
Viability is indeed an issue, say, aviation experts. “Airports demand high maintenance and running expenditure, and they are not like bus and train services that can be shut down for a week. Although trains were halted during the pandemic, they could recover the costs by running goods trains. But airlines cannot do that. Their assets are very expensive, and operational costs are on the higher side,” notes Sanjeev Dyamannavar, an urban mobility analyst.
Regional air connectivity between Hubballi city and Belagavi on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border also makes little sense. “The travel time is only 70 minutes. If you were to fly, you need to factor in an hour’s advance check-in time, 30 minutes of flying, and checkout time. It will work out to be 2.5 hours.”
Connection to metros
Private players’ monopoly
To boost regional connectivity, he recalls, the Centre had come up with the Udaan (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik), an Air Deccan concept. “Despite this, there is a huge problem getting connectivity to the regional airports. Flying from Delhi to smaller towns is very difficult. Fortunately, in Delhi, you are getting a new airport which is a competition to the existing airport. London has six airports, all international. Mumbai has only one. A second one is coming. But they are all monopolies.”
Citing government data, Capt Gopinath says that even today, only 4% of Indians travel by air. “We need every Indian to fly at least once a year, which is quite a dream. But to ensure that, not only should airlines and airports compete, you must have lower taxes on fuel in airports. Also, it would help if you had multiple airports so that costs come down.”
But in Bengaluru, competition from the old HAL Airport was snuffed out once the new international airport was commissioned in 2008. A concession agreement between the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) and the Karnataka government mandated that no commercial airport could operate within a 150-km radius of the new airport for the next 25 years.
Multiple airports within a city
Currently, at least 21 new airports are in multiple planning and completion phases countrywide. Nine new ones have already been commissioned in Kannur, Kerala; Pakyong, Sikkim; Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh; Donyi Polo, Arunachal Pradesh; Durgapur, West Bengal; Shirdi, Maharashtra; Kalaburgi, Karnataka and Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh.
Aviation experts have no issue with new regional airports provided they are sustainable economically and offer a faster alternative to road and rail. In Karnataka, however, new airports and proposals are seen as smart political moves to reap electoral dividends. But as political observers note, this can work only if the government upgrades connecting roads and other related infrastructure, woo investors, and invest money in local industrial development.
Parallel investments
In Kalaburgi, Karnataka, the local demand for an airport was based on the hope that it would boost business and employment. Once industries emerge, people could find jobs locally and not go searching in neighbouring Maharashtra. But people in the district now feel the government is not doing enough to get investors to the region. They fear the airport will eventually be used only by political VIPs with their chartered flights, helicopters and business jets.
Plans for any new regional airport should be based on monitored data from existing airports. Aviation expert Capt Aravind Sharma says: “It is a chicken and egg issue. Somebody, typically the government, puts up an airport. But the economics and the market determine how many airlines come in and how many survive. Whether there is a quantum jump in traffic or only an incremental increase needs to be studied.”
Compare this to a three-hour train journey. “You can reach any railway station in Bengaluru within 20-30 minutes. Ordinary trains also take only two and a half hours to reach Mysuru. Shatabdi and Vande Bharat take you one hour and 40 minutes. And trains take you from the city centre to the city centre. That is why schedules like Bengaluru - Mysuru or Mumbai - Pune just don’t work. They have a flight because somebody has forced an airline to do that. Whatever the occupancy, they keep operating. That is political. That is not economics. But private airlines won’t do that.”
Sustainability questions
The Udaan airports have a clear understanding with the State Governments that airlines are given concessional landing and other airport-related fees. “They are operationally sustainable because the government underwrites. So, even if a flight goes empty, the government pays for those seats. But even here, there are problems. The Hyderabad-based TruJet basically meant for Udaan support, folded up due to financial constraints. That is the case in the Northeast, too,” explains Iyer.
Ultimately, it is also about affordability. As Capt Aravind says, the typical argument that a flight fare can get as low as a train ticket or cheaper never happens. “If you want to go to Chennai from Bengaluru in a Shatabdi or a Vande Bharat, you can do it for a thousand bucks. A flight is never less than Rs 2,800.” The economies of scale might reduce the fares one day. But a long wait lies ahead.
Rasheed Kappan is a senior journalist based in Bengaluru with nearly three decades of experience. In the past, he has worked in the Deccan Herald, The Hindu and The Times of India, covering issues related to urban mobility, sustainibility, environment and the interface between policy, planning and activation on the ground. A graphic cartoonist, he is the founder of Kappansky and explores the linkages of art, media and innovation through multiple creative platforms.