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ShareNew Delhi: The frequent grouse of some Indian carriers that a liberal bilateral regime has hurt their load factors on international routes is borne out by statistics.
According to figures provided in the Economic Survey 2008-09, as many as 1,05,298 additional seats per week were made available in 2008 to foreign carriers through fresh bilateral agreements.
Carriers which fly on international routes have often alleged that neighbouring countries such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Singapore etc have begun using these bilaterals to generate more onward traffic using their cities as regional hubs.
"India has a very strategic location vis-a-vis Europe and Far East but we haven't been able to develop ourselves into an international hub. Since the government has taken a liberal view on bilaterals, our much smaller neighbouring countries have benefited instead. Also, in places such as Dubai, Singapore etc, ATF prices are almost half India's and this also makes them more attractive," said an official with a leading Indian carrier.
Not just increased bilaterals, the government also allowed 26 new points-of-call to designated airlines of 16 countries last year. Traffic rights were enhanced to countries such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Germany, Qatar, Bhutan and even Azarbaijan in 2008 --this means foreign carriers were given more and more entry points into India, further impinging on the concept of making India a global aviation hub.
Then, though the government had emphasised its commitment to further development of airport infrastructure throughout the country in a time bound manner, it remains to be seen how soon this ambitious project gets off the ground.
For the programme to upgrade and modernise 24 non-metro airports, even the bidding process is yet to start.
Continued ambiguity on parameters for calling bids has been delaying the project -- first there was confusion over whether some works inside the terminal building plus city side should be given to private players after the Left parties opposed any private intervention inside the terminal building.
Then, the Airports Authority of India threw up hands, saying it cannot manage different private players across 24 airports and would like a combined bid so that only one private player is involved in city side development across all these airports.
The debate is still on and the bidding process, which was conducted based on earlier parameters, is stalled again. On Delhi and Mumbai International Airports, the Survey
talks of modernisation but does not point out that shortfall in revenue targets has already led to the operators charging a development fee from each outbound passenger.
