Air passenger traffic up by 20% says Vijay Mallya

The Indian aviation industry,which suffered a slump in the wake of the global economic slowdown has been witnessing a resurgence with a 20% increase in air passenger traffic, Chairman of Kingfisher Airlines Vijay Mallya said.

The civil aviation industry, which was impacted to a great extent by global meltdown in 2008-09, has seen a "revival, a resurgence post that period, with the passenger traffic increasing by 20%" he said.

He was speaking after inaugurating the two-day national convention on "Frontiers of Aeronautical Technologies", organised by  Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI) on the occasion of its 61st AGM here today.
   
Mallya, also president of AeSI, highlighted the urgent need to create Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO)centres in the
country as several airlines were going to international centres to conduct the MRO tests.
   
He further called for setting up a National Aeronautics Commission to bring all research and development in aeronautics under one umbrella.

"A proposal in this regard has already been submitted to the Centre but the project has not taken off. This is a high priority programme which needs to be pursued", Mallya said. He said government and private sector must partner with
each other not only in creating civil aviation infrastructure but also to address critical issues such as high taxation,
input costs and regulations, faced by the industry.
   
Lamenting that flying clubs in the country had almost become redundant, Governor HR Bhardwaj stressed the need to
have revive these clubs and also establish more flying clubs to train pilots domestically.

Earlier, recognising the work rendered by distinguished scientists in the field of aeronautics, Bhardwaj conferred the National Aeronautics Prize for the year 2009 on Programme Director and Director Aeronautical Development Agency, PS Subramanyam.

Subramanyam was instrumental in design and development of avionics system and flight control system of Tejas from its
initial stages.  He successfully guided the design and development teams to achieve flight clearance of various indigenously developed equipment of avionics systems and flight control systems which are integrated on Tejas.
  
He will also spearhead the design and development of LCA naval variant and productionisation of Tejas aircraft for operational service.