Our Knowledge Is Never Adequate

For all the busy Air-travelers and dreamers, here are a few interesting facts and fundas. The following is a gist of the highs and lows in the Indian Aviation. So let’s begin on a positive note.

The Good:

Indian airports are facing heavy congestion, especially at the top rated airports. Oh! Oh! This is not bad news folks. This congestion comes as good news, at least in one way if not any other. The aviation growth in India has been nothing but extraordinary. The Indian aviation industry grew by 25% (Global growth of 5%) in 2006-07. And guess what. This last year was even better, with an unbelievable growth of 28.8% whilst in the same period the global industry saw a growth of around 6% that has seen the expansion of numerous and newer airports.

However, as we know, a bright day is always followed by a dull evening and that is what we are going to look at now.

The Bad:

The congestion that brought us some good news did us more damage than good. According to a few analysts, this air congestion could have been stopped or at least reduced had they only seen the growth in the industry at the beginning of 2003. This coupled with the bitter verity that the navigational services and systems at most Indian airports are outdated by over 10 decades as compared to other airports worldwide. What is the expansion of any purpose, if the systems being used are from the age of the Christ?

If this is not enough for one bad day, what follows is like adding insult to injury.

The Ugly:

Wouldn’t it be delightful if India occupied 3 positions in the top 5 in a rating? Yahoo! But, its not as good as it sounds.

Forbes, in association with FlightStats, has released a list of “The Most Delayed Arrival Airports in the World for 2008” as reported by TOI (Times of India). You got that right. Three of India’s best airports rank among the top 5 in that list- Mumbai (No.1), Delhi (No. 2) and Bangalore (No. 4). According to the reports, more than half of the flights (On time arrival %= 49.95) to Mumbai arrived late;around 60% of these flights were delayed by more than 30 minutes. In this list Delhi was just less than a percent ahead at the second place (On time arrival %= 50.89) with Bangalore sitting 6% off the third spot (On time arrival %= 60.16).

Lets hope the day only gets better for us.