Airports in India

Aviation in India

Aviation in India has a long history spanning over 99 years. In 1912, during British rule, first Indian flight was inaugurated from Delhi to Karachi. During that time, all flights were operated by Indian State Air Services in collaboration with Imperial Airways of United Kingdom. Then immediately after the independence, two main lines were established in India. The two Indian airlines established were - a) Airline Corporation and b) Air India and both were state owned entities.

The above two state owned aviation entities (i.e. Indian Airlines and Air India) had total control over airline industry in India nearly four decades. During this period benefit of air travel was confined to few privileged (either politically or economically) people who could afford. Compared to thousands of flights operated today, at that time, number flights was abysmally few. This shows over the 99 year period, aviation in India has developed into a massive industry benefitting rich and the middle class community. After India commenced its rapid economic development, the aviation industry changed rapidly so that many privately owned airline operators came into the sector. For example, several low cost airline and service operators commenced operating domestically as well as internationally. The number of airline operators tends to increase further due to rapid transformation and development of airport infrastructure such as:

Construction of new airports including refurbishment (or increased capacity) of existing airports in numerous Indian cities and associated infrastructure and facilities such as road networks, rail transportation and hotel accommodation.

Expansion of aviation services provided by the government owned airline carriers.

Modernization of airline services such as maintenance, repair and overhaul and safety at airports through latest instrumentation.

Exploring new international airline routes by the state aviation sector

Rapid increase in business travel and global mobility. In essence, increase in demand for domestic and international travel owing to rapid economic growth.

Besides above, the recent statics indicate that there has been amazing increase in air traffic since year 2004. For example, as per the current estimates, domestic and international travel has increased by 15.8% and 44.6 % respectively since year 2004. It is further predicted that there would be around 100 million passengers (domestic and international) would be attracted to the aviation sector by the year 2020. Similarly, annual increase of cargo would be around 3.4 million tons.

In consideration of the above, it is certain that Indian aviation industry will certainly outperform other Asian countries in terms of air travel. Consequently, more and more international airlines will compete to get a slot in the Indian aviation sector. Thus shows that the Indian aviation industry is further poised to develop into next level depicting it as one of the rapidly growing aviation industry internationality and the in region.

It's well known that catalysing of the rapid growth of the industry was due to private investment friendly government policies that encouraged the international aviation investors to participate. As such, nearly 75% of the Indian aviation industry is dominated by the foreign and the domestic investors. Hence, in the near future India will become an attractive aviation market in the Asian region for foreign and local investors.

In the coming years the Indian aviation industry will further catalyst into a giant industry due to the following:

Increase of purchasing power of air-traveller partly due to affordable airfares offered by numerous low cost carriers such as Go Airways, Spice Jet, Kingfisher Air, Decan Airways etc.

Developments of Indian tourist industry and overall economic progress have resulted in increasing inbound and outbound travel.

The government commitment to boost the industry by modernizing the aviation industry as a whole including developing more international airports to handle rapid increase in air traffic

Revamp of existing aviation policies (by Indian government) to encourage local and international participation in the development of aviation industry. Also, such policies further encourage public-private partnerships to develop massive airport infrastructure development projects.

By looking at the above trends in the Indian Aviation Industry, one could see the tremendous potential it has in the coming years, in terms of rapid development and economic prosperity to the country.

Aviation in India

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