BS Infra Summit: India becoming a global gateway, say airport CEOs

Delhi and Noida airport chiefs say India is on the cusp of becoming a global aviation hub, driven by rising transfer traffic and expanding international connectivity

Indians travelling abroad are the country’s “natural strength” in its aspiration to become a global aviation hub, said Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, chief executive officer (CEO) of Delhi International Airport, and Christoph Schnellmann, CEO of Noida International Airport, at the Business Standard Infrastructure Summit in New Delhi. Safety has to be the “primary consideration” when designing aviation infrastructure, they said in a panel discussion moderated by Deepak Patel. Edited excerpts: 

  When does an airport become a hub? 

Jaipuriar: There is no set criteria for any airport to be called a global hub. It is more about how well you are connected to across the world, and what is the percentage of “transfer traffic”. So, typically for a global hub, you would assume close to about at least 30 per cent of the traffic is a connecting traffic, with a mix of domestic-to-international (D-to-I) as well as international-to-international (I-to-I) traffic. So, at the Delhi airport, about five years back, we had about 20 per cent connecting traffic, but it was more to do with domestic-to-domestic connecting traffic. In the last five years, we have improved our D-to-I as well as I-to-I connecting traffic. So, we are currently at about 28-29 per cent. So, I can say we are on the verge of getting classified as a global hub or a global gateway. 

Schnellmann: I think it is probably worth reflecting on what is a hub in the first place. Hub is the center of the wheel. Along with the hub, comes spokes. In aviation, a hub-and-spoke model means that I channel traffic through different spokes (smaller airports) to a hub and then to different spokes (smaller airports). A hub benefits each stakeholder differently. A passenger gets to have more connections globally and within India. An airline is able to offer more destinations and greater connectivity with fewer resources (aircraft, employees etc) and fewer individual flights. There are benefits for the airports and cities that house such hubs. We have certainly seen larger airports in India begin to provide this hub connectivity at a global scale. 

What is the current share of I-to-I traffic? 

Jaipuriar: The current share of I-to-I traffic (in Delhi's total passenger traffic) would be 3-4 per cent because India is in a very unique situation. If you start comparing any Indian airport with the nearby international airports- Singapore or Dubai- they are primarily I-to-I driven and don't have much domestic traffic. India is akin to many of the US airports where domestic feeds a lot of international traffic. So, in the last five years, we have seen about a 200 per cent increase in I-to-I traffic, and D-to-I traffic has also gone up by about 30 per cent. 

What are the advantages of greenfield and brownfield airports in becoming a hub? 

Schnellmann: A greenfield project (like Noida airport) comes with advantages and challenges. We were not constrained by legacy infrastructure or systems, and we have an opportunity to design a terminal and an airport system to the traffic that we hope to cater to. In our case, this means that we've been deliberate about designing a terminal that enables short transfers, facilitates short connection times. We've been able to deploy the newest technology when it comes to passenger processing, Digi Yatra, self service backdrops etc. The disadvantage is that we don't have the experience and the historicity that my colleague (Jaipuriar) has when it comes to developing and furthering the processes and the infrastructure.

 

Jaipuriar: When you design an airport, it is based on a 10-year traffic projection. In 2016, when our last master plan was getting made, Air India was a government organisation without much funding. IndiGo then did not have much international aspirations. Now, those aspirations have changed. We are now in the process of doing master planning where we have taken those inputs. Obviously, it is more difficult to make any changes in a running airport. In a greenfield airport, they get a distinct advantage of doing everything from scratch, based on more recent traffic projections. The benefit of a brownfield airport like Delhi is that we are in the centre of the city. The catchment area is much larger. The relationship with airlines is long standing, and it helps in doing their future planning because, even at a hub airport, you need about 60 to 70 per cent of traffic that is origin-to-destination traffic. You can depend on transfer traffic to have a share of about 30-35 per cent.

 

What steps have been taken to ensure smooth movement of passengers between terminals?

 

Jaipuriar: We have done many things and we plan to do much more. We have started baggage transfer on the city side. So, if you have to come out from terminal 1 to go to terminal 3, your baggage need not come out. Your baggage can get transferred to your flight standing at terminal 3. In terms of ground transportation (passengers travelling from one terminal to another via bus), we have increased our frequency. A transfer bus departs every 10 minutes. For the future, we have two plans. One is metro connectivity. A "golden line" is getting established, connecting terminal one and Aerocity. So, a passenger, who has to go from terminal one to terminal three, can use the golden line to come to Aerocity and then go to terminal three using the existing airport line (wherein terminal 3 is the next stop). We are also establishing automatic people mover, connecting three terminals, by 2027. We are in the bidding stage, expecting it to get completed anytime in the next one month. The construction will then begin. The key benefit of automatic people mover is that you have got a defined time in which the transfer will take place.

 

Schnellmann: We are building just one terminal at the moment. The master plan that we have developed sees the Noida airport growing to a capacity of around 70 million passengers, probably during the next 20-25 years, and this will include two terminals. As we approach those planning phases in more detail, we will certainly take a closer look.

 

What are the connectivity options for people to get to the Noida airport?

 

Schnellmann: We are working to ensure that there is a quick and easy option to reach the airport at each and every budget. We are located just adjacent to the Yamuna expressway, about 600 meters away from Delhi-Agra expressway. In the initial stages of the operation, the main connectivity will be through roads. We have tied up with state bus operators across North India, exclusive VIP taxi services, app-based taxi services such as Uber and Rapido, to ensure that connectivity is there at every price point. In parallel, with state and central governments, we are working on a plan to provide RRTS (a semi high-speed rail connectivity network) from Delhi, Noida and Greater Noida to the airport.

 

What are your expectations with the government relating to immigration counters?

 

Jaipuriar: First, let's accept that our immigration processes are the best in the world, in terms of waiting time. I stood in a queue at the Washington airport for one and a half hours to clear the immigration. In our case, if anyone is taking more than 15 minutes, he can get on a tweet and we have to make sure that they quickly pass through. We have been increasing the number of immigration counters on a regular basis. And, I think the biggest initiative that the government of India has taken is the trusted traveller programme (TTP.) We have seen a fantastic uptake on that. Its acceptance is increasing. And in fact, the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) is also going to increase the number of counters, which basically is for TTP. So besides that, we work very closely with immigration officials on easing the flow of passengers. So, for example, any foreigner coming to India for the first time has to give his or her biometric. That used to take a lot of time of the immigration agent. So, we put up some biometric kiosks in the pier itself so that the passenger can give his or her biometric in advance, so that the time that he or she takes with the immigration official is minimised. So, I have seen a fantastic movement ahead in terms of manning, training, and technology adoption. I think we will be able to maintain the current efficiency in the years to come.

 

Schnellmann: In the initial phases, our primary traffic is going to be domestic, perhaps more D-to-D and D-to-I. We will be an international airport. There will be immigration counters there. I think the conversations with the BoI, have been very constructive. So, we're working together with them to deploy the infrastructure - physical infrastructure such as the electronic counters for the TTP - that they require to do their job. And I have the utmost respect for the BoI, they have a delicate balance that they need to achieve between maintaining the border security of the nation, and at the same time doing so in a way that's as convenient for the passengers as possible.

 

Is there a possibility of a terminal dedicated to an airline?

 

Jaipuriar: In the current structure, it is not possible (to have an airline-dedicated terminal) because we want to increase the efficiency in processes. So, all international travel is going to be limited to terminal three. That means that domestic airlines have to be at multiple terminals. That is where connectivity plays a very important role. So there was a question between whether we want a single-terminal-airline or we want the process efficiency by having international flights, where the passenger processing time is the maximum, at a single terminal. So, we went for the latter.

 

How is the role of air traffic control changing with the rise in passenger traffic ?

 

Jaipuriar: Air traffic control (ATC) plays a very vital role, especially considering that now there is another airport (Noida airport) that is coming which will lead to common area control. ATC has been able to redesign the whole air space and bring efficiency because not many of you know that in the Delhi airport's airspace, almost 70 per cent is restricted. So, in spite of having that restriction, how do you actually improve the efficiency of the airspace? It is all up to ATC. The ATC underwent high intensity runway operation training about five to six years back, and they have implemented it. Currently, we are handling close to about 1,500 aircraft movements a day. From there, we are going up to 2,000 plus movements and on this, we are working with ATC. This will be possible only by bringing in some new procedures such as “independent parallel approach”, for which people need to be trained and newer decision support systems are required. So, we continuously keep on working with the Airports Authority of India (government entity which runs the ATC) on these matters.

 

Schnellmann: Safety is the primary role of the ATC and the primary consideration when designing the infrastructure. Another challenge for us, and working together with the Airports Authority of India, is how we can increase the capacity of the airport. How can we safely increase the capacity of the aeronautical system in and around the national capital region (NCR)? How can we do so without impacting the punctuality of the system?

 

When will flight operations at the Noida airport begin?

 

Schnellmann: We are on the home stretch. We are excited by the progress we have made again in the past couple of months. December 2024 was a big highlight for us as we were able to receive the validation flight by IndiGo down on our runway. We are moving forward on the construction works on the passenger terminal. As we speak, we are working for the aerodrome licensing with the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). In parallel, there is a lot of work going on related to testing and commissioning passenger processing systems - baggage handling system etc - in the terminal. All of these will lead to the start of operations soon.

 

What is the ideal I-to-I share at the Delhi airport?

 

Jaipuriar: Our initial focus has been more on D-to-I traffic. Regarding I-to-I, we are already seeing interesting aircraft movements between certain sectors. For example, between south-east Asia and Europe, and between south Asia and Europe, and between south Asia and the USA. Delhi airport is better connected to Europe and North America as compared to any other airport, except the middle eastern airports, in this region. We have seen flows come in even from Australia to Delhi airport to Europe. I would like to see the share of I-to-I passenger traffic in the total passenger traffic to reach 10 per cent in the next 5-7 years.

 

How can India go ahead of airport hubs like Dubai and Singapore?

 

Schnellmann: I think if we want to succeed in India with hubs, if we want to win with hubs in India, we do so not individually, as an airport, or as an airline, or as the government, but we do so as an industry. We do so by working together, and ultimately, in order to win, our “transfer product” needs to be better in some important and some meaningful way, and better will not mean the same thing for each and every passenger. Better may mean quicker, may mean easier, cheaper, or more luxurious (for the premium traveling segment). But I think if we want to succeed as a hub, we do so by finding a way to work together to define these “transfer products”, to make them superior to some of the alternatives (airports). We need to build on the natural strengths that we have - a very, very large domestic market that is willing to travel and wants to travel abroad. I think that’s the way forward.

 

Jaipuriar: In 2019, possibly only 17-18 per cent of people travelling to Europe or North America were taking direct flights from India. As compared to that, the percentages have improved quite dramatically. Now, close to about 40-45 per cent of passengers are going directly to Europe from the Delhi airport. Our initial aim is to become an airport of choice for the Indian traveller. Because, we have been seeing the leakage to nearby airport hubs, which feed on Indian travellers more than any other country around us. We have been working with the government on policy changes. Air service agreements (bilateral agreement between two countries that decide the number of flights each country's airlines can operate to the other country) is one such policy change that the government has been looking at critically, because the air service agreements should be in a manner that supports Indian carriers. Indian airports are there to support by providing infrastructure. About three-four years back, we probably did not have aspirations to become a hub for Indian airlines. We have two strong airlines (Air India and IndiGo). So it is very important. On the topic of security procedures, the government is already working on making it much smoother for the transfer passengers (who use Delhi airport as a transit point). Thirdly, for passengers who are waiting, the airports need to create infrastructure that makes their stay at the airport much more comfortable. We are looking at global brands, different kinds of facilities, which makes their stay at the Delhi airport more convenient. These are some of the things that the government, airlines and airports need to work on to make a hub.