Some food for "deep thought" ;) in today's report about Churchill's views on Goa's aviation scene. He has four bees in his bonnet. 1. He wants to retain Dabolim as an international airport. 2. He demands a shift of the naval base from Dabolim so that a second runway can be built at the airport. 3. He is now having second thoughts about the rationale for Mopa airport and wants Goa's MLAs to spell it out, pro or con. 4. He has no problem now if the new airport is set up across the border in Maharashtra instead of in Mopa. The last point in conjunction with the first is now a bit of a joke in Goa. It goes something like this: Even if the new airport is built just across the border in Maharashtra it would/could/should still be called GOA international airport! Nothing like leveraging a good brand, right? The other side of this coin is, why the crying need for Mopa to be called Goa international airport instead of just Mopa international airport? Some one trying desperately to scrore a political point it seems. Which brings us to the nub of the report in question. Churchill enquires how there can be "two international airports in one state". Good point and I hope he dwelt on it in his presumably studied statement in Parliament. My own response would be that there is a (small, though not tiny) Indian state which has not one or two but THREE international airports that too in one 100-200 km stretch. And they are even talking of a fourth international airport in the near future. What does international airport mean in the Goa context? Just a lot of chartered flights. Hardly any scheduled flights worth the name. By contrast, the airports in the above case are all handling numerous scheduled international flights. So all our Goan politicians seem to be only confusing issues and ensuring that the state remains backward due to their petty infighting and myopic mentality.
