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Mar 2007

Phenomenal growth in air traffic sudden : Patel

     New Delhi: Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel today said that the high growth and phenomenal increase in the number of air passengers in the country recently has been "sudden and unexpected". Informing the members of the Rajya Sabha, he said, "The reason for the sudden spurt in the number of air passengers are because of economic reforms, fast industrial development, rapid increase in buying power of a sizeable population, emergence of low-cost airlines and apex fare systems, open sky policy, liberal policy of license to new scheduled operators, liberal bilateral agreements, liberal permission for acquisition of new aircrafts by airlines, and permission to domestic carriers to operate on international sectors including to the United Kingdom and the United States of America ". Several actions have been taken to cope with this increase in air passenger traffic, he added. Patel listed the actions that have been carried out to tackle the spurt in air traffic like constructions of new terminals, expansion of existing terminals, construction of additional aircrafts parking stands for overnight parking, construction of new rapid exit and parallel taxiways to enhance runway capacity, introduction of Air Traffic Control (ATC) procedures for simultaneous use of both runways at the IGI Airport in Delhi and CSI Airport in Mumbai, posting of additional ATC officers in ATC units, ban on general aviation and military flights during peak hours at IGI and CSI Airports , modernization and development of the IGI and the CSI Airports through joint-venture companies and construction of Greenfield airports at Bangalore and Hyderabad with Public-Private-Partnership.
-Mar 6, 2007