Airports facing 50% ATC shortfall

Mumbai: India’s two largest airports–Delhi and Mumbai–have just 100 air traffic controllers guiding 500 planes daily, nearly 40-50% short of the requirement. The 87 domestic airports have just 1,000 air traffic controllers, grossly inadequate for the booming aviation sector. At 2,500 flights per day, India needs a minimum of 2,500 ATCs. Yet, an official from the Airport Authority India (AAI) admitted that no ATCs have been recruited in the last five years.
With the domestic airlines asking the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for permission to operate 40% additional flights this summer, taking the daily total to 3,500, up from 2,500 in the summer of 2006, this shortage is set to become acute. Additional flights would add to the work pressure of the existing ATCs, since there would be 600 flights each day over Mumbai and Delhi airports this summer.
An operations head with a domestic airline said, “The task of ensuring safe operations of commercial and private aircraft falls on an ATC. In India, especially at the metro airports, the ATCs have to guide an aircraft every three minutes for take-offs and landing. There should be adequate traffic controllers to guide the movement of aircraft.”
The situation has reached alarming levels where an ATC guides planes through some 14-15 routes at the same time.
17/03/07 Shaheen Mansuri/Financial Express