"Indian airports are the world's busiest"

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Indian airports are the world's busiest
The Economic Times of India


Indian airports have shown record growth in passenger and cargo traffic in
the first six months of the financial '05. Measured by growth in passenger
traffic alone, Indian airports are the world's fastest-growing.

"Passenger numbers grew 24% in the April-September '04, more than double the
growth in the corresponding period last year," said Airport Authority of
India(AAI) sources.

Cargo handled in April-September '04 grew 20.5%, compared to the global
average of 10%, though the latter figure is for the January-June '04 period
and is thus not strictly comparable. However, global trends are unlikely to
have changed much over the July -September quarter.

The Geneva-based Airports Council International (ACI), the global
association of the world's airports, has released figures for January-June
'04, which show that the only airports with higher growth than India are
those that were affected by SARS in '03.

For example, Bangkok airport passenger traffic grew 31.4%, in Singapore it
grew 35.5% and in Beijing it jumped 69%, mainly because these airports were
virtually deserted last year. Most airports in mature markets showed
single-digit growth.

In India, domestic traffic grew 26.5% while international passenger traffic
increased 19.2%. Passenger numbers increased to 9m from 7.5m on the
international sectors, while domestic numbers grew to 18.5m from 14.6m, AAI
sources said.

"The figures are likely to be much higher for the current quarter because of
the limited open skies policy, where several airlines have made huge
capacity additions," he said.

In terms of cargo carried, Indian airports handled 618,000 tonnes in
April-September '04, 20.5% more than the 512,000 tonnes handled last year.

However, the ground reality for most passengers is that the quality of the
airports remains unchanged.

Indian airports don't figure prominently in the qualitative ranking of
global airports. Dubai, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur finished top among the 35
airports participating in the '03 Global Airport Monitor survey, conducted
by IATA (International Air Transport Association) and the Airports Council.

The survey reflects passenger satisfaction across a range of service
attributes, derived from 50,000 interviews at participating airports.

Also, passenger numbers are higher at global airports. In '03, Atlanta
remained the world's busiest airport, handling 79.1m passengers (up 3%).
Chicago-O'Hare was second, with 69.4m (up 4%), followed by London's Heathrow
with its traffic unchanged at 63.5m.

But, with 56.5m international passengers (89% of total traffic) Heathrow is
the world's busiest international gateway. In comparison, Mumbai handled
13.3m passengers and Delhi about 10.5m in '04.


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