In transit

Major airports in the country have been late to the party of global airports, unlike Atlanta, Chicago, Dubai or Singapore which are hubs connecting one end of the world to another. However, in a case of better late than never, the Indian airports are now taking steps to becoming global hubs.

The Indian Government’s decision to allow private sector participation in domestic airports and the opening of the integrated domestic and international terminal under the same roof at Terminal 3 (T-3) in Delhi in 2010 was the first step, and possibly a game changer. While in fiscal year 2010 the airport handled 1.6 million transfer passengers — about 6 per cent of all passengers who travelled through the airport — this figure touched 8.4 million transfer passengers or 20.5 per cent of all passengers handled in fiscal year 2015.

What’s a hub A hub airport is one where a passenger, say from Chennai, can fly to Singapore and within a short time connect to another flight to Auckland as the final destination. And for that to happen an integrated passenger terminal is important.

“With the commissioning of T-3, Delhi transitioned into a hub airport for international and domestic traffic,” an airport spokesman said. What also helped Delhi airport was that Air India moved its long haul operations into T-3. The arrival of the airline’s Dreamliner Boeing 787 aircraft, which were largely based out of Delhi, also boosted the terminal’s growth as a hub. Besides, in July 2014, Air India joined the Star Alliance which facilitated seamless connectivity between the national carrier and 26 other Alliance members. Not to be left behind, Mumbai airport too is making progress. “With better infrastructure availability, the transfer passengers have increased to more than 4 million passengers in 2014-15 from 1 million passengers in 2008-09,” a GVK spokesperson told BusinessLine .

The spokesman further added that with the integrated Terminal 2 becoming operational in Mumbai, the transit experience of passengers was greatly enhanced. T2 was inaugurated on January 14, 2014 and became operational on February 12, of the same year.

One of the main reasons why Indian airports make for good hubs is the vast size of the country. And this is something which Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports are keen to tap into.

SGK Kishore, Chief Executive Officer, GMR Hyderabad Airport, said the terminal has emerged as the preferred gateway for south and central India. “The airport caters to passengers from many regional cities including Pune, Rajahmundry, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Vijayawada,” he pointed out.

Why it’s important But why are passengers transferring from one aircraft to another at an airport important? Airport officials point out that transfer traffic plays an important role in the overall traffic and financial growth of airports. “The spend per transfer passenger is high at any airport in comparison to an origin and destination passenger, as the time spent by the transfer passenger in the airport is higher than other passengers,” a spokesman of Mumbai airport said. A GVK spokesperson said as an emerging hub, several new initiatives have been taken at the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru. The spokesman added that the airport has a well-defined route development strategy with the objective of being the Gateway to South India.

A long way to go However, there are many like private sector airport operators who feel that Indian airports have a long way to go before they are considered hubs because it does not have a strong domestic airline.

They point out that due to the presence of a strong hub partner like Emirates in Dubai and Singapore Airlines in Singapore both these airports enjoy double-digit growth.

Amber Dubey, head of aerospace and defence, KPMG, gives more reasons for why Indian airports are still not considered hubs. He points out that hub airports are driven by their hinterland economy, hub carriers, efficient processes and relatively ‘open skies’. “India lost out on all counts. We have a weak hub carrier, the hinterland economy around leading airports is small, Indian tourism traffic is negligible, the processes are inefficient and we have no open skies agreement with anyone other than USA,” he said.

Yet Amber is hopeful that the new draft national civil aviation policy (NCAP) could change all this. “The long awaited NCAP 2016 focuses on enhancing India’s global and regional connectivity. Given that Air India is in financial distress and most Indian carriers do not have a wide-body fleet, the government is now considering to allow limited ‘open skies’ to countries outside a 5,000-km radius. This will allow airlines from EU, Americas, Africa and Australia to fly in unhindered. The removal of code share restrictions allows all foreign airlines to have seamless connections to all parts of India or from India to a third country using code-shares with Indian carriers,” he said.

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