Civil aviation severely hit by economic slump: Survey

The civil aviation sector, which experienced a "dramatic expansion" in the past few years, has been severely hit by the economic slump and high fuel prices with domestic passenger traffic declining by five per cent last year.     

Maintaining that the recent fall in jet fuel prices would "augur well" for passenger traffic this year, the Economic Survey said the only silver lining was that domestic cargo showed a growth of 14.55 per cent.     

There were 648 small and big aircraft owned by 11 scheduled passenger carriers and 99 non-scheduled airline operators in the country, the Survey, tabled in Parliament today, said.     

 

Regarding Air India which is facing an acute financial crunch, it said the national carrier would "enter the list of top 30 airlines globally in terms of fleet size" of more than 140 aircraft.     

On airport development, the Survey said the modernisation and upgradation of Kolkata and Chennai airports by the Airports Authority of India was in progress and was likely to be completed by 2010-11. While the estimated expenditure for upgrading Kolkata airport was over Rs 1,942 crore, Chennai airport cost would amount to Rs 1,808 crore. 

The Authority is also undertaking modernisation of 35 non-metro airports with a priority on projects in the North-Eastern region.      

The terminal buildings at Srinagar and Nagpur airports have been expanded and modified for integrated operations. Architectural design competitions for terminal buildings at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Udaipur, Lucknow and Ranchi among others have been held.      

"The city side development of 24 airports will be undertaken with private sector participation under PPP (public-private-partnership mode," the survey said.     

These airports include Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Jaipur, Udaipur, Lucknow, Madurai, Mangalore, Rajkot and Vadodara among others.     

The government also established a pilot training nstitute at Gondia, Maharashtra. "There are plans to set up National Institute of Aviation Training and Management for training in aircraft maintenance engineering and other aviation related subjects. The institute is likely to operational by September 2009," the survey said.