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Here are excerpts from a recent debate in Business Standard between the
National President, Air Passengers association of India and Vijay Mallya,
Chairman and CEO of Kingfisher Airlines. It is about congestion at airports
and the fee levied by the Federation of Indian Airlines in this regard. The
two positions are followed by an excerpt from a web article of Chandan
Mitra, Editor of Pioneer, written on Dec 10, 2006, after a trip to Goa. It
is also about airport congestion and the fee.
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c.php?leftnm=10&autono=280
680
Is the congestion surcharge justified?
DEBATE
P R Sanjai / Mumbai April 11, 2007
D Sudhakara Reddy, National President, Air Passengers Assocn of India
Congestion surcharge is an unheard of phenomenon in the aviation world and
prevails only in India as of now....This so-called congestion prevails only
in three metro airports - Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. There is absolutely
no congestion in the rest of the nine metro airports and various other
non-metro airports such as Lucknow,
Madurai and so on. Ironically enough, airlines have imposed congestion
surcharges on all the routes throughout the country, which cannot be
justified in any way. Airlines can land or take off at any time from any of
the non-metro airports and the congestion at metro airports is not going to
affect the schedule of an airline's
operations. They just have to plan their schedules accordingly. If
increasing the fares was what they wanted, they could have just done that
without making so much noise. Or else they could devise several other ways
to recover their costs. Private airlines are repeatedly
claiming that the idea behind imposing a congestion surcharge is to draw the
attention of the government. If at all, they wanted to impose a congestion
surcharge and even make a point there, they could have limited it to the
three metro airports where the congestion is supposed to be the maximum. But
not doing so just shows that there is a hidden agenda beyond what is stated.
>>>
Vijay Mallya, Chairman and CEO Kingfisher Airlines Ltd
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) may not want to agree, but
congestion is a fact! Congestion is not confined to the number of aircraft
flying from or to an airport. Nor is it just restricted to the Mumbai and
Delhi airports. The effects of congestion are visible on every aircraft
flying or parked in this country. It is not just confined to the ones
hovering in the skies or to the ones waiting with engines on for permission
from the air
traffic controller to land or take off respectively. But it is
applicable to the availability of parking slots in the day and also for
overnight parking. The fact again is that the parking slots in the country
are not enough, which forces airlines to park their aircraft all across the
country, though it is not their hub. This incurs additional costs to
airlines. ... People say that congestion exists only in the metro airports.
True, but this has consequential impact on the whole network of flights. A
flight that takes off half-an-hour later than its scheduled departure from,
say, Delhi,
consequently gets delayed in arriving at the next destination and so on. It
has a cascading effect on all the routes to be serviced by that aircraft on
that particular day. The result is heavy fuel burn for the airline as well
as dissatisfied guests. For instance, a Mumbai-Delhi flight which would have
taken two hours, may take an hour more due to congestion at both these
airports. There is a cost attached to this additional fuel burn, either by
flying or waiting on the ground, that will have to be recovered from
passengers. >>>
http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name
=mitra%2Fmitra217.txt&writer=mitra
Chandan Mitra, Edior Pioneer
Some plane truths
For over a week now, air passengers are being made to pay a surcharge of Rs
150 on every ticket ostensibly to help airlines reduce pressure on their
bottomlines caused by interminable delays in landings and take-offs at
airports - especially Delhi and Mumbai. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel
is hopping mad with private carriers for imposing this congestion surcharges
on air travellers
and intervened recently to stop state-owned Indian Airlines from following
the lead taken by Kingfisher and Jet Airways. He also lashed out at those
who have slapped the surcharge, claiming it is an invidious way of hiking
fares and that, in any case, air traffic congestion is confined to Delhi and
Mumbai, so passengers travelling
between other destinations should not be penalised for something they don't
experience. .... Mr Patel is only half-right in claiming that air traffic
congestion is a Delhi-Mumbai phenomenon. Last week, I travelled to Goa on
business and lost precious hours both landing in and taking off from Dabolim
airport. As my plane kept circling the airfield I spotted half-a-dozen
commercial aircraft haphazardly parked all over the small airport. The pilot
informed us there was no place to land and Air Traffic Control had directed
him to keep circling till a couple of planes took off and vacated a few
parking slots. Our plane finally landed, followed almost immediately by
another. But we had to wait another 15 minutes on a subsidiary taxiway for
two other planes to get airborne before we could reach our designated slot.
Since we had to patiently wait one hour on the tarmac in Delhi in the queue
to take off, the end result was a two-hour delay: A flight scheduled to take
me to Goa in two hours and 30 minutes eventually got me there in
four-and-a-half, and
that's only the time consumed inside the aircraft! Goa Deputy Chief Minister
Dr Wilfred D'Souza told me when I called on him next day that his Government
was in no position to increase the number of charter flights this year (last
year 720 such flights brought affluent Western tourists to this heavenly
beach destination) since
there was no place to park. He also pointed to the Navy's dilly-dallying
over vacating nine acres of land needed to expand the airport. The Civil
Aviation Ministry cannot be blamed for this. But the cumulative effect of
bad planning, shoddy implementation, interminable delays in execution of
sanctioned projects combine to create a bottleneck that threatens to choke
off both business and tourism in India. >>>
QUESTION: What are your views, if any, on the above national level
situation? If you were CM of Goa what, if anything, would you do about it?
Give reasons.Thanks.
