Saturated airport capacity, a pain point for Indian aviation

Sanjiv Kapoor, Chief Strategy & Commercial Officer, Vistara tells us, “Compare New Delhi to Beijing, which is twice the size of the capital when it comes to passenger volumes. Ten years from now, its volumes will be three times as large as New Delhi’s. We really need to grow the big hubs. Until then, it will be hard to compete with other regional or global hubs like Doha, Dubai or Dallas in the US. Even Delhi needs to double in size. In certain airports, there are no parking bays; in some airports, there are no check in counters. And most airports have no slots available for landing or parking.”

He adds, “Our airports in Delhi and Mumbai are also fragmented across different terminals, so that makes it even more challenging to create a hublike scenario. Land is a huge constraint as always. From the government’s side, at some point soon, we are hoping that the issues concerning the taxes on fuel (ATF) get addressed.” 

Vistara, a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, has a market share of under 4 pc in the Indian domestic aviation business. On Thursday, it inaugurated daily direct services between Delhi and Chennai. The airline will double the frequency in this route from March 1, 2018, providing sameday return options in both directions. It will also fly daily direct between Chennai and Port Blair from March 1 and will expand its operations from here from March 25, 2018 with daily direct flights to Kochi and double daily flights to Kolkata. With the inclusion of Chennai to its expanding network, the airline now flies to all Indian metros.