In TOI 16/8/08, there is this article headlined "Churchill uses I-Day platform to slam govt". In it there is this line: " [Alemao] cautioned the government against going ahead with the Mopa airport as that would be 'disastrous' for Goa and Goans." Now this is all very well and good if the "Mopa airport" he envisages is the "international project" outlined erroneously by ICAO.
But what if Mopa airport is planned and designed as a small regional airport that doesnt compete with Dabolim for passengers? Then why should a plane vanilla "Mopa airport" catering to Tier III towns in its vicinty be disastrous? It would expand the aviation market instead of cannibalising Dabolim's traffic and jeopardising the latter's future. If Alemao could bring himself to make this small but significant semantic switch it would be a huge step for Goa and Goans in aviation. What would it take to make him and his army of followers do that? That's the million dollar question for Goa. A small airport need not be antediluvian in design, including technology, by any means. It can be state of the art, leapfrogging a generation of such facilities in the world. It should also be built for future expansion in a modular way to maximise the efficiency of capital. But before all this, a suitable business model must be thought through, including all desirable revenue streams, so that it is viable in the shortest possible time frame -- in conjunction with, and not at the cost of, Dabolim. Alemao should not have a problem with this, right (if he is a true Goan)? Thus the line between pig-headedness and statesmanship is a fine one indeed. One serious problem we foresee is that there may be a built in bias among pols for mega-projects especially in an election year (for Parliament) when campaign war chests have to be built up. That may be what is driving GOG and MOCA towards the ICAO design which MOD would not find incompatible with its own long term aims for Dabolim either. It may be easier to take an all or nothing stand in the circumstances even though Goa would be doomed to second rate aviation facilities for another few decades.
