Zoo Station

Noone who reads this blog needs to be told why airport modernization should be absolutely on the top of the agenda for reform in India. An airport is where a foreign investor/traveller/tourist develops his/her first impression of a country. And you can imagine what any traveller with Bombay airport as first impression thinks of the rest of the country. In fact, several leading airport surveys have consistently ranked India's airports among the worst in the world, despite the fact that other Asian airports dominate the list of the world's best airports. In fact, here's what one of the more prominent surveys had to say about Indian airports.

As there are so many to choose from, I am also giving the Worst Airport(s) award to the entire country of India who only has one airport rated "good", but only because it was a better alternative to actually sleeping in one of their hotels. Unacceptable seating, foul odours, filth, fleas, safety, and general hassles have resulted in India's 8 year reign of the Worst Airport(s) Title. Travellers beware: when sleeping in one of India's "fine" airports be sure you have your own bug spray, air freshener and disinfectant or just go to the nearest bar and drink the pain away.

Of course, we could laugh this off, but it's not easy because this sort of thing hurts inward investment and travel, both of which are badly required. Thankfully, India's civil aviation minister Praful Patel gets it. He understands the first impression bit; he understands that all these airplanes being ordered by Indian airliners (and touted in the media) need airports to land in; he understands that profitability of private airliners could go up substantially if airports were improved, etc. The International Herald Tribune carried an excellent story yesterday on the three things India must do to turn its creaky airport infrastructure around.

The first is to cede control of the country's two most important airports - in Mumbai, the finance capital, and New Delhi, seat of the central government - to private firms that specialize in running airports. The theory is that doing so would turn the airports into profitable centers with amenities, while also making them more efficient, with shorter ground time, lower costs and more streamlined takeoffs and landings. Patel is pushing a plan to do just that, and it is progressing over the objections of trade unions. Despite a strike in September by thousands of airport workers to protest the privatization plans, several airport operators appear to be interested.

The second element is to bring more of the country's 300 or so airports into the national grid by adding flights to functional but obscure airstrips and by upgrading navigation equipment and buildings at long-neglected facilities. Following the Chinese lead, Patel is also pushing to get more domestic airports onto the international stage. Singapore Airlines, for example, has begun operating flights to second-tier cities little known outside India.

Number three is to increase not just passenger capacity but also the ability to move goods in and out of the country. Jacques Creeten, the country chief for FedEx in India, said the government was realizing what FedEx had long argued: that an airplane carrying goods generates considerably more economic activity than one carrying people. India now loses out on much of that activity by preventing cargo carriers from working at peak capability, Creeten said. FedEx wants its own facilities, but Indian law prohibits foreign carriers from making domestic flights, requiring them to fly to Mumbai or New Delhi and continue by road.

UPDATE: Kamla seems to have noticed significant improvements at domestic airports in India.