Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh today said that the Centre is keen on providing air connectivity to tier II and III cities, by operating right mix of airlines and development of low-cost, no -frills airports.
The Union Minister who was in Chennai to participate the inauguration of newly built International and domestic terminals at Chennai today, said that the domestic air traffic is expected to touch 336 million passengers per annum in the next 10 years and the international traffic will exceed 84 million passengers.
He added, the focus is now getting shifted to low cost carrier model and it will lead better growth in the futrue for the carriers.
Commenting on the safety systems, he said data link communication system has been implemented in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai which will eliminate human errors and delays in pre-departure clearance.
The Minister also said that a satellite based navigation system GAGAN is being jointly developed with ISRO, which is designed to provide accuracy, availability and integrity necessary to enable users rely on GPS for all phases of flights and is likely to be operational by July 2013.
The minister said with these two new terminals, the capacity of Chennai airport has been enhanced from 9 million to 23 million passengers per annum. The annual cargo handling capacity has been enhanced from 3.2 lakh tonnes to 11 lakh tonnes.
Earlier in his address Vice President of India Hamid Ansarii said as a vital infrastructure, civil aviation plays an essential role in the economic progress and integration of a country and it has an important role to play in promotion of travel, trade and tourism.
Civil aviation also makes a vital contribution on integrating the country with the rest of the world and better air services would help improve competitiveness of industry and exports and by expanding the size of the market aviation acts as a 'spur' for innovation, he said.
He added, the aviation industry, reported a 15% compounded annual growth in India in the last 10 years and to support the future the Government of India has given in-principle approval for 15 greenfield airports with AAI upgrading and modernising 35 non-metro airports.
