India's aviation sector is flying into severe infrastructure shortage

Domestic airports across the country are bursting at the seams

A senior executive of a leading Indian carrier complains that his airline has not been granted a single additional slot to fly during peak hours in Mumbai in the last 12 months. “We can easily grow traffic by 15 per cent a year from the city, but we have no choice but to wait for five or six years till the new airport comes up,” he says, predicting that such capacity constraints will force air fares to hit the stratosphere.

Mumbai, the country’s second-busiest airport, is no outlier. In Delhi airport, the busiest, additional slots during peak hour traffic have