[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

So, dear BHPians allow me to share the facts as I know them.

Where the airports are concerned - we have 486 air strips, ie a simple cemented strip, on which an aircraft can land. Of these only about 131 are in use for civil, military or training purposes. The rest lie idle. The UDAN scheme is a well planned programme to eventually have at least a feeder airline service at most of these 486 strips.

This is no different from certain swadeshi politicians who, in 1952, questioned why Mumbai, Delhi & Calcutta needed elitist things like air connections.

The nature of infrastructure is such that the 10% of stations/routes provide 90% of business. But that doesn't mean you ignore the remainder 90%. Hence it is in the natural order of things that the bottom three-fourths of airports will run at a loss. What has to be measured is the multiplier effect of that airport on the wider trade and commerce of that station.

Very well captured sir. It is only correct that the major AAI / privatized airports subsidize the rest of the 'loss-making' airports as holistically it helps the entire ecosystem.

What we need quickly are so-called 'No Frills Airports' or NFAs which will not have conveyor belts, air-conditioning, aerobridges, dedicated ATC towers (clustering instead). These can be retrofitted into existing buildings alongside the existing strips for barely 50-100 crores each.

These should of course be built not based on political pressure but only after detailed viability analysis with all stakeholders and competing modes of transport including Indian Railways and MoRTH. Look at the Mysore airport for example. It is just too close to KIAL (BLR) and unless a major urban agglomeration comes up (which it might), it will not be viable especially with the 6-laning of the BLR highway and double-tracking + electrification of the BLR railway line.

In my humble opinion, making sweeping statements about 'morons' at MoA and denigrating the UDAN Regional Connectivity Scheme without analyzing the huge challenges are meaningless and reeks of urbanized armchair snobbery. On the same basis, there was really no need for the PPP airports like GVK (KIAL/MIAL), GMR (DIAL/HIAL) and Cochin IAL. Or are Metropolitan cities deserving of these while others are not?

[longhorn]

A few kind folks here seem to have misunderstood what I am trying to say. My hometown neither has an airport, nor a railway station. Neither do I expect the govt to put one up for me when its not financially viable. Of course all this does not matter if its a defence project, for which the parameters under consideration would be totally different.

I am all for regional connectivity. I am against the govt / airline / XYZ having to subsidise it. If you want to fly, you should be willing to pay for the facilities. Else there are always other options. It's not a Re 1 per kg rice scheme where at least a part of it goes to the needy. Subsidy will take you nowhere.

One needs to apply their mind and brainstorm the pros and cons BEFORE a scheme is launched. Crying hoarse about the challenges later on just goes on to show how ill conceived the whole thing was. Airlines are there to earn profit. Why would anybody want to fly a loss making route and make the money good from others.

Its not a question of deserving something. Its pure economics - demand and supply. Unless you have a minimum number of people wanting to fly on a route on a daily / bi weekly / weekly basis, it doesn't make any sense to have planes flying around with hardly 10 people in it.