Developments in Indian Aviation

Important Developments in Indian Aviation -

• Four airlines given NOC to operate as Regional Airline – M/s. Star Aviation for Southern Region, Jagson Airlines for Northern Region, M/s. MDLR Airlines Pvt. Ltd., for Northern Region and M/s. Zav Airways for North-East/Eastern Region.
• Air India will become the full-fledged member of the Alliance formally by 2009, when the IT Integration and other issues will be completed. Specialized teams at Air India, Star Alliance and its member carriers are now working on the integration process.
• Approval given by Government to set up Greenfield airports in Kannur (Kerala), Navi Mumbai and about the international airport at Jewar, Greater Noida that is under the consideration.
• Andhra Pradesh State Government announced the reduction in the sales tax on ATF from 33% to 4%.

more details about Zav Airways can be taken from http://zavairways.com/

Future Airports in India...

Presently India have 460 airports n airstrips. The Govt. now plans to have nearly 500 airports n airstrips in India by 2020. This will include the ongoing redevelopment of currently unused airports or little used airports and development of greenfield and cargo airports. There are another 368 landing strips that function as makeshift airports for limited purposes. As many as 156 belong to the defence or semi-defence sectors and various state governments while 63 are owned by the private sector. The peculiar situation in India is that air traffic is concentrated at a few key airports. They include 16 offering international services and another eight that connect domestic sectors. These 24 airports together account for a whopping 94 per cent of traffic and the balance is spread over 36 smaller or regional airports. A very liberal aviation policy is requires to reach the target of 500 full-fledged airports in the country, which has to be backed by an aggressive programme to upgrade existing small airports. Airport development in India is expected to be largely a private sector play in the near future.

Some state governments like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra have also identified as many as 15 airports for development.

Private conglomerates already run some airports like those in Mumbai, Kochi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi.

taken from www.ibef.org