Edits, Columns & Analysis - March 2008

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Taking off
Jitendra Kumar Gupta
Business Standard
Mar 31, 2008
Mumbai: With two airports and ongoing projects in power, road and real estate under its belt, GMR Infrastructure is expected to see better days ahead.
GMR Infrastructure is ready to take-off as two of its prestigious airport projects, which account for over 27 per cent passenger traffic in India, are going on stream. Besides, there are huge opportunities in the infrastructure space, especially for projects in the public-private- partnership (PPP) domain.
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The Surrender of IC-814
MSN India
Mar 30, 2008
One unexpected consequence of the publicity blitz surrounding the publication of LK Advani’s autobiography has been the return of the controversy over the hijacking of IC-814 in December 1999. Because public memory is short it might be worth recalling the events of that fateful winter. The aircraft was on a scheduled flight from Kathmandu to Delhi when it was hijacked by men claiming to be Kashmiri militants. They first took it to Amritsar, then to Dubai and eventually to Kandahar where it sat on the ground for several days.
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UDF mustn't drive away passengers: Praful Patel
Raja Awasthi & Dheeraj Tiwari
Economic Times
Mar 30, 2008
The budget may not have addressed the concerns of the fast growing aviation market, but civil aviation minister Praful Patel is hopeful that the sector would generate enough impetus on its own for a sustained development. In a freewheeling chat, he talked about the key developments taking place on the domestic front and on the challenges and possibilities for future growth.
Excerpts >>>

Turbulent times for a high-flying marriage
Shobha John
Times of India
Mar 30, 2008
The old guard has given way to the new. National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL), the merged entity of AI and IA, will get a new chairman, Raghu Menon, on April 1. He's inherited a behemoth meant to take on global airline giants. With a combined fleet of over 150 planes and an enviable reach, the sky's the limit for it. But eight months after the merger, NACIL is still floundering. Menon told STOI he needed time to study the merger issues. But before the skid becomes a slide, there are issues he needs to tackle head-on.
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How IT is changing airports
Elyes M'Rad,
Regional Vice President, Sales and Relationship Management,
South Asia and India
SITA
CNN-IBN
Mar 29, 2008
The peculiar situation in India is that air traffic is concentrated at a few key airports. There are 16 airports 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.
Presently, India has only 80 fully functional airports equipped to handle scheduled commercial, charter and defense services.
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Time to clear the air
Abhijit bhattacharyya
The Telegraph
Mar 27, 2008
Notwithstanding common perceptions about the malevolence of British rule, India should consider itself fortunate that it got at least 200 ready-made airports by the time the British left. Independent India has taken almost 61 years to construct three airports of international standard at Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi. There were once two operational airports in Mumbai, and in Delhi (Palam and Safdarjung), besides several flying clubs of repute. Till the Sixties, the Safdarjung airport handled the Indian Airlines Dakotas, and the Fokker Friendship. The airstrip today is all but abandoned. Similarly the much-reputed and pioneering Behala flying club in Calcutta is as good as dead.
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Why Jet wants a second European hub
Nirmal John
Daily News & Analysis
Mar 25, 2008
Mumbai: Three international hubs —- that’s what seems to be on Jet Airways’ mind to spearhead its global play.Of these, its first overseas hub at Brussels in Belgium was unveiled last year.The airline is currently in advanced stages of negotiation with the Chinese authorities to have a hub at Shanghai for operating flights to the US west coast. But what came as a surprise to many analysts was the talk about a second hub by none other than Saroj Dutta, executive director, at a recent analyst conference.
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'Go Air to break even in 2009'
Business Standard
Rediff
Mar 24, 2008
He does not mind gulping down a "Kingfisher" beer even though it is a product made by a competitor group. As Go Air's two-month-old CEO Edgardo Badiali says jocularly about Vijay Mallya, "I help him make money as we don't make beer."
Badiali who worked for Italian low-cost carrier MyAir, apart from a two year stint in Jet Airways in the early 1990s, talks to Surajeet Das Gupta and Anirban Chowdhury about his plans for the airline and the tough times in the aviation industry >>>

Turbulence Ahead: Airlines growth takes a dive
Nirbhay Kumar
Economic Times
Mar 24, 2008
New Delhi: The aviation sector too appears to have fallen victim to the slowdown fever. After consumer goods and capital goods industries — which saw sharp declines in the past few months — the growth in the domestic aviation sector has dipped sharply.
From a record 32%-plus growth last calendar year, it has fallen to 11.5% mainly because of fare hikes and a high base impact. During the first two months of the calendar year, the seat factor of almost all domestic carriers has declined.
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Hyderabad airport: The changes in the air
K.V. Kurmanath
Business Line
Mar 23, 2008
Hyderabad:On Sunday, Varun, 10, woke up to a quiet morning. It was a pleasant change for his sister and parents too as it was only the crows and doves that were making noise and not the bustling ‘big birds’ landing and taking-off at the Begumpet airport.
Like this family, thousands of others living near the airport are greatly relieved too, even as the fact that the airport ceases to operate sinks in slowly.
“We thought we have to live with it forever. But, fortunately, the noise would be a thing of the past. Moreover, we can expect less traffic,” said Mr Kashyap, Varun’s father. The family lives in an apartment complex abutting the compound wall of the Begumpet airport.
But there are others who say they will miss the airport and the aircraft flying in and out of it.
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K'taka ignores low-cost connectivity to new airport
Aravind Gowda
Business Standard
mar 21, 2008
Bangalore: Even as the Karnataka government is planning to invest Rs 3,716 crore over the next three years to provide dedicated railway connectivity to the new international airport near Devanahalli from the city, experts feel that the Indian Railways’ network in and around the city can be utilised to ferry passengers at a fraction of the cost.
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The Airport Expansion That Is Grounded!
Chennai Online
Mar 19, 2008
The Chennai Airport is the third largest international gateway into India and the third busiest airport after Mumbai and Delhi. Undoubtedly, it is the main air hub for south India, handling over11 million passengers and serving more than 60 different airlines. It is also an important cargo terminus. However, its capacity to handle aircraft movement is likely to be saturated in four or five years.
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On wings of fire
Cuckoo Paul
Economic Times
Mar 19, 2008
Being the chief financial officer of Air Deccan is never comfortable. The airline has been going through tough times throughout its five-year history — pushing the envelope at every stage and losing plenty of money. The man who currently dons that mantle is Ramki Sundaram, who is also the officiating CEO of the Bangalore-based carrier. Air Deccan was bought over by the UB group last year and is currently in the middle of the merger process with Kingfisher Airlines.
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Traffic jam
Arnab Pratim Datta
Down To Earth Feature Service
Deccan Herald
Mar 18, 2008
Every month, six aircraft are added to the Indian airspace. In 2006-07, 60 million people travelled by air in the country. The aviation sector is indeed growing at a steep rate. Here is the downside: congestion, flight delays and diversions; all leading to enormous fuel wastage. The average wastage of fuel per flight, operating between Delhi and Mumbai, the two most congested airports in the country, is 30-40 per cent, says Ravi Capoor, the executive director of the Petroleum Conservation Research Association, an energy auditing agency.
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AI has blueprint to become 'world class carrier': Thulasidas
IANS
Sify
Mar 17, 2008
Mumbai: Air India has a major blueprint for expansion and integration to make it a "world class carrier", with plans for at least three maintenance, repair and overhaul units even as it gears up for the "best interline pact" with Star Alliance, says chairman and managing director V. Thulasidas.
"You will see us as a completely integrated airline from April 1 next year - not just with the erstwhile Indian Airlines but also the Star Alliance - the world's largest and, I would say the best, interline pact," said the airline executive.
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Airport projects hit a rough patch
The Hindu
Mar 17, 2008
The two-day “non-cooperation movement,” a euphemism for a strike by the Airport Authority Employees Union, was called off by Thursday evening. It may at best be a truce because the basic problems raised by the agitating staff have not been addressed. In 2004, when the Central Government signed agreements with two consortia for the development of greenfield airports in Hyderabad and Bangalore, there was turbulence in the air. Even then, the Airports Authority Employees Union and allied trade unions in the country, threatened to go on strike protesting against the privatisation move. A similar strike was also in the air in relation to the proposal to privatise or corporatise Air India and Indian Airlines, even find a strategic partner.
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‘Hyderabad is the perfect place for a hub in India’
Ashwini Phadnis
Busness Line
Mar 17, 2008
The opening of the new airport in Shamshabad, near Hyderabad, might have been delayed and the Standing Committee of Parliament may have called for keeping the existing airport at Begumpet open, but the GMR group that is developing the new airport feels it has a strong case. Earlier this month, much before the delay in the opening of the airport was announced, Mr Kiran K. Grandhi, Managing Director, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited, met a group of journalists from Delhi at the new airport site. In a free-wheeling interaction that lasted close to two hours, Mr Grandhi outlined the group’s thinking.
Excerpts from the interview >>>

Transfer time at new Hyderabad airport
Cuckoo Paul
Economic Times
Mar 15, 2008
Hyderabad: When Rajgopal Swami went shopping for 2,500 suitcases of assorted shapes and sizes last year, a lot of people in the market wondered what he was going to do with them. One year down the line, all bags have been checked in and out of the new Shamshabad airport several times, even though the airport is not yet open for business. Guns have been concealed in them, banned items have been carried in them, they’ve been through hundreds of screenings in the belly of the airport, without ever leaving the premises. The bags are part of the props for the airport’s Operations and Readiness and Trial (ORAT) runs that the airport operator hopes will help prepare it for crunch time when it shifts from Sunday midnight.
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Steep user development fees a big stumbling block
Shauvik Ghosh
Financial Express
Mar 15, 2008
Delhi: Postponement seems to be the common thread that binds both the Bangalore and Hyderabad airports now. While operations at Hyderabad’s new international greenfield airport will now start after a few days, Bangalore’s plans to open its new airport by the end of this month have been stalled by the ministry more than three weeks before its launch.
In a statement, the ministry has said that it has asked the Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) to consider a suitable date after May 10 for the opening of the new airport at Devanahalli, Bangalore.
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The making of country’s first private greenfield airport
K.V. Kurmanath
Business Line
Mar 15, 2008
Hyderabad: When Lufthansa’s flight lands on the 4.26-km-long runway at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airports (RGIA), it will be very difficult to believe that the place was full of uneven land three years ago.
Perhaps not many believed that the GMR-led consortium could achieve the ‘ambitious’ timeline indicated in the concession agreement signed in September 2004.
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Ready for take off
Nirmala Ravindran
IIndia Today
March 14, 2008
Creating a virtual south Indian hub for air traffic in India, the Bangalore airport, hot on the heels of the Hyderabad International Airport, will open its swish doors to herald a sea change in the way we look at airports.
The two most awaited airports are expected to open within weeks of each other and hope to set new standards not just in air travel but also in airport infrastructure in the country.
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Don't Ground India
Times of India
Mar 13, 2008
The government must ensure that the strike by the employees' union of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) doesn't affect airport operations in any way. India's airports are old and dilapidated.
Even if the status quo suits some vested interests, the cost to the economy of holding up their modernisation is incalculable. Nobody walked off his job at Delhi and Mumbai airports, which are privately run.
Since the strike is against plans to privatise Bangalore and Hyderabad airports those participating in it are, in effect, cutting the ground from under their feet.
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IT’s making airport operations smoother and faster
Shubhra Tandon
Business Line
Mar 10, 2008
When time and efficiency become crucial for running mega projects such as airports profitably, information technology has to step in. According to Siemens, a global major in IT solutions, while 10 years back airports were spending only 2-3 per cent on IT infrastructure, today they spend around 8-12 per cent of the total investments, depending on which part of the world the project is. Gone are the days when airport operators could depend on manual intelligence to carry out operations right from checking your ticket at the departure gate to transferring your luggage into the aircraft.
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Regional airlines take to Indian skies
Anita Jain
TravelBizMonitor
Mar 09, 2008
The Indian civil aviation sector is poised for a quantum growth with growing levels of domestic and international tourism traffic. With the upward surge, the Indian Low Cost Carrier (LCC) sector is driving this change by successfully tapping 45 per cent of the Indian aviation market share. To cope with increasing demand, the supply and competition between airlines is on the rise. From 2005, about ten companies have applied for scheduled airlines licenses, in order to enter the race. Full service carriers focused more on international routes while the LCC sector focused on the metro and mini metro routes. The government, in order to enhance connectivity to tier II and tier III cities in the country and reduce congestion at airports in the major metros, introduced the regional airlines policy in August last year.
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Only what air travellers want
Ashish Singh, Dave Emerson and Nikhil Raghavan
Livemint
Mar 06, 2008
Indian air carriers have their hands full as the rapid growth in domestic air travel adds to the strain on the country’s aviation infrastructure and rising fuel prices cut into profits.
The pressure is telling: Last month, India’s biggest domestic airline, Jet Airways, reported its first loss in five quarters despite carrying more passengers. Competitor SpiceJet, too, is hurting from higher energy costs, reporting that its net profit in the October-December quarter dropped 23% year-on-year.
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Fear of Flying
Times of india
Mar 06, 2008
Reports about appalling passenger handling at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport speak volumes about the efficiency of our airport authorities. Airport infrastructure is so poor in the capital, hat one has to reach the airport at least four hours in advance in order to take a flight. The modernising work initiated at several airports across the country seems only to have made matters worse. Passengers have to face the brunt of bad approach roads, lengthy queues for baggage checking as well as security inspection and also extensive waiting time to board flights.
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We'll clock 18-m transactions by this fiscal-end: InterGlobe
Vishakha Talreja
Economic Times
Mar 06, 2008
NEW DELHI: Global Distribution System (GDS) technology plays an important role by providing diverse travel booking options from various suppliers (such as airlines and hotels) to travel agents on a single platform. With travel market in India growing rapidly, the role played by GDS players too is undergoing a change.
ET met Bruce Hanna, president and CEO of InterGlobe Technology Quotient, the distributor of Galileo (one of the leading GDS players globally) in India regarding GDS trends in the country. Excerpts >>>


‘The airline is now operating in a very stable environment’
Tarun Shukla
Livemint
Mar 06, 2008
After two years with Jet Airways (India) Ltd, the second in turning around what was regarded as one of India’s most troubled airlines, Air Sahara (now JetLite), Garry Robert Kingshott will move on to the Philippines after May to head another low-cost carrier, Cebu Pacific. In an interview at JetLite’s office overlooking the Delhi airport, the CEO of JetLite tells Mint why he decided to move on and the way forward for the airline. Edited excerpts:
What made you quit even though you haven’t yet fully turned around JetLite? By when do you think JetLite will be able to break even and also, when will it become profitable?
There is absolutely no doubt that the work here is not finished and it won’t be for two-three more years. I think what we have done now in the last 10 months is that we have taken an airline that would very easily have collapsed, to an airline that is now operating in a very stable environment.
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Air India flight 182: Where is the justice?
Norman Boxall, Jacques J.M. Shore and Chris Schafer
Windsor Star
March 04, 2008
The Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the bombing of Air India Flight 182 has wrapped up public hearings and Canadians now await the recommendations. At the beginning of the inquiry, almost a year and a half ago, Canadians heard, many for the first time, emotional testimonials by victims' families. A theme that ran through each was a simple plea; a plea not for retribution against the perpetrators of Canada's largest mass murder, but a plea for justice.
In the period prior to the June 23, 1985 bombing, the Canadian government failed to make a determined show of political will to address the threat posed by Sikh terrorism in Canada. The lack of priority and insufficient resources devoted to this threat manifested itself in the form of intelligence and institutional failures on the part of key government agencies.
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Airlines crash land in red zone
B S Arun and Dilip Maitra
Deccan Herald
Mar 03, 2008
The pre-budget appeal of the domestic airlines to the finance minister to reduce taxes on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) was their last hope to make money. The Union Budget for 2008-09 has not touched upon the subject and left airlines to their own destiny. And airlines seem to be flying to the doom. All airlines, including the largest Jet Airways and the Government-owned Air India, are bleeding heavily. Against the estimated total loss of around Rs 2,500 crore in 2006-07, the airline industry is expected to pile up a loss of Rs 2,800 crore to Rs 3,000 crore from their domestic operations in 2007-08.
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Air rage begins on the ground
Sidhartha Roy
Hindustan Times
Mar 03, 2008
New Delhi: If you have a flight to catch at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, reach the airport at least four hours before your flight departs. If you don’t, you are sure to miss your flight. Passenger queues and, consequently, waiting time to board a flight were never so long than they are now at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, the rush blamed on an ambitious renovation and modernisation programme the airport is going through.
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