It's a 'super growth year' for Mumbai airport

MUMBAI: When the city airport was privatised, Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd (MIAL), which took over its reins from the government, worked out an estimate of passenger traffic growth into and out of Mumbai for two decades and chalked out a growth plan. This week, as the airport completes 10 years of privatisation, that estimate stands out as proof of how unforeseen the growth has been in the last three years in domestic aviation.
Projections by MIAL for 2015-16 put passenger traffic at 35 million.What the airport handed though was 41.6 million, which is over six million more than what was estimated. According to the estimate, Mumbai airport's passenger traffic would have crossed 40 million only in 2018-19. The unprecedented growth has much to do with low fuel prices, something that airport planners must not have foreseen when they chalked up estimates a decade ago. The gap between estimates and actual numbers will only widen in the cur rent fiscal if fuel prices stay low, aviation analysts said.
"It's a super growth year," said Amber Dubey of KPMG, referring to the country's domestic air passenger growth. Currently, India's domestic passenger traffic is at a global high of 21.2%. For 2016-17, it could even cross 25% if aviation turbine fuel prices stay down and airlines go ahead with fleet expansion as planned. That will further throw off MIAL's projections, which predict that Mumbai airport's passenger traffic will reach 49 million only by 2022-23. An airport official said, "If the current rate of growth continues, passenger traffic at the city airport will touch 49 million in a few years. It definitely is one of the most constrained airports in the world." Till 2012-13, passenger traffic grew at a rate that was predicted. In fact, in 2012-13, after Kingfisher Airlines wound up operations, passenger traffic handled by Mumbai airport fell. "Who would have thought that three years from then, the situation would reverse entirely," the official added. MIAL has then been making capacity additions to accommodate the stupendous growth witnessed in the last three years.
Some of them were part of the original plan. Like airside operations have been enhanced with five rapid ex it taxiways that allow aircraft to vacate the runway at higher speeds after landing.Before privatisation the airport had only one rapid exit taxiway. Consequently, over the last five years, runway capacity has been increased from over 30 take-offs and landings per hour to 45, peaking at over 52, said an MIAL spokesperson.
Among revisions brought about in the masterplan because of unprecedented growth is the underpass that will connect domestic and international termi nals. "The underpass will be used by passenger coaches, airside vehicles that service airlines, to the airport. It will allow for faster movement and will speed up flight operations," said the spokesperson. Another plan that was made in response to domestic passenger growth is the building of taxiway M. With its construction, aircraft will have more space to queue up before take off. Afterall, air traffic congestion is only going to be on the rise in the coming years.
So, if the double-decker A380s that can carry over 500 passengers ever did domestic flights in India, the airport that would benefit the most would be Mumbai. Airlines operate domestic flights using smaller A320 and B737 aircraft which have lesser than 200 seats. One A380 aircraft would handle the load of 2 A320s, thus decreasing runway congestion. The airport has the infrastructure in place.
"Mumbai airport has four functional double decker aerobridges for use of A380 flight operations. Located from V17 to V21, these aerobridges are used by A380s operated by Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Etihad," said the MIAL spokesperson.