http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1379986.cms
Aviation ministry seeks more airspace from defence IANS[ FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2006 08:30:14 PM] NEW DELHI: More air space will be created for commercial airlines in India to accommodate the boom in traffic by procuring protected capacity with the defence ministry, Civil Aviation Secretary Ajay Prasad has said. "A joint working group comprising the civil aviation ministry and the Indian Air Force has been constituted by the government last month to identify routes under the control of defence," the aviation official said. "This could be opened up for operating commercial air traffic," Prasad, who was earlier defence secretary, said during an interactive meeting here with IANS editors. "There is a tremendous growth that is taking place in Indian civil aviation and I am happy to say that the Indian Air Force is proactive in this regard," he said, adding, "We definitely need more space." The Airports Authority of India (AAI), which controls flow of commercial air traffic in the country, handles 178 routes over the Indian air space at present. These include 79 routes for domestic traffic and another 99 for international traffic coming into the country and overflying Indian air space. During the last fiscal, the AAI handled 730,018 aircraft - 158,191 international and 571,827 domestic - that showed a growth of 12 percent over previous year. While passenger traffic witnessed a growth of 20 percent in the same period with 59 million passengers, the cargo sector expanded by 22 percent by handling 1.3 million tonnes. Prasad said the market was set to expand further, referring to new airlines that are operating, including Air Deccan, Kingfisher, SpiceJet, Go Airlines and Paramount, while Inter Globe, Indus and Jagson are waiting to take wings. Their entry is also expected to see a major jump in the number of aircraft in the domestic market, in addition to the orders for 68 Boeings placed by Air India and 43 Airbus aircraft by Indian Airlines. "In the present scenario, the Indian aviation industry expects a steady growth of 16 percent till 2010," Prasad said, adding that the ministry was expecting the group's report in a few months' time to enable some concrete decisions. ------------------- 1. The panel was announced in Oct 2005, three months ago. But it seems to have been constituted only one month ago. 2. Its report is now expected "in a few months time" after which some concrete decisions would be taken. All this is very slow when the aviation industry is growing so rapidly. Besides some of these issues have been under negotiation for months if not years earlier. Why the dithering? Especially when the Civil Aviation Secretary was formerly Defence Secretary! Recently it seems the IAF's top brass were able to spare time together with the Defense Minister to "pre-view" a Bollywood film production based on MIG 21 crashes because they were reportedly "concerned about the IAF's public image". If the military was more concerned about 'delivering the goods', day in day out, its image would probably take care of itself! And finally, the panel was originally supposed to go into the vexatious issue of military control over airports too. Has that been quietly dropped from the agenda? A good bit of airspace management problems must be tied to the practice f military control over economically vital airports like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Goa, Pune, Agra, Gwalior etc.
