India plans to more than double its airport count to 300 by 2047 on the back of an eightfold increase in passenger traffic, a draft plan made by the country's airport authority showed. This will involve developing existing airstrips to full-scale airports and building new ones from scratch.
A draft plan prepared by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) showed that around 70 airstrips can be developed into full-fledged airports which can handle narrow-body aircraft such as A320 or B737, and nearly 40 airstrips can be developed to handle smaller aircraft. Greenfield or new airports will be planned if an airstrip cannot be developed for any reason, or there is no civilian airport within a radius of 50 km. Currently, 138 airports are operational in India.
Two officials aware of AAI's plans confirmed the development.
"This is likely to include a mix of greenfield airports and also development of existing civil enclaves into full-fledged operational airports," one of the two officials said on the condition of anonymity.
The estimates are from AAI's draft National Airports Development Plan, which projects annual passenger traffic to grow from 376 million to 3-3.5 billion by 2047. Of this, 10-12% may be international traffic. The plan, which is being discussed in the civil aviation ministry and the Airports Authority of India, will form part of Vision 2047. Airports count domestic passengers twice—at arrivals and departures—while calculating domestic traffic, while international passengers are counted once.
"These estimates are based on various assumptions and dynamic factors. This is a preliminary assessment and the numbers can change later if the scenario changes due to any reason," a second official said.
At Mandavi in Gujarat, Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Tura in Meghalaya and Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, existing air strips can be converted to airports for small aircraft operations, the draft said, citing a preliminary assessment. Greenfield airports could come up at Kota in Rajasthan, Parandur in Tamil Nadu, Kottayam in Kerala, Puri in Odisha, Purandar in Maharashtra, and Car Nicobar and Minicoy in Andaman and Nicobar islands.
Queries sent to an AAI spokesperson remained unanswered until press time.
The plan to increase operational airports to 300 by 2047 looks ambitious, but the focus on improving connectivity to tier 2 and tier 3 cities through schemes like UDAN (Ude desh ka aam nagrik) and making major Indian airports international hubs may support the plan, said Vinay Kumar G., vice-president & sector head corporate ratings.
"The under-penetration of air travel in India, rising income levels and improving connectivity to newer destinations in the domestic and international segments will be key growth drivers for the industry," Kumar said.
The AAI preliminary assessment also outlined the airport connectivity situation in the US and China, which have a far bigger air travel market, and have seen higher propensity for air travel as incomes rose. For example, China recorded 0.47 trip per capita per annum in 2019 when its per capita income was at $10,144 and for the US, it was registered as 1.2-1.3 trip per capita per annum when its GDP per capita per annum was recorded at $20,000 at current prices.
Estimating a per capita income of $18,000-20,000 on current prices by 2047 for India, the study has estimated 1 trip per-capita per annum, expecting over 3 billion passengers by 2047.
"To maintain a compounded annual growth rate of around 9.5% over the next 23 years horizon will be a challenging task. Securing the necessary regulatory/environmental approvals and land clearances as well as funding for such large-scale expansion remains crucial to ramp up passenger handling capacity and achieve these targets," Kumar of Icra added.
Separately, the airports operator has conducted feasibility studies for greenfield airports, and spotted multiple sites, including Sonepur in Bihar and Koppal in Karnataka, while feasibility reports are also in the pipeline for Wayanad in Kerala and Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh.
"It is crucial to balance this ambitious expansion with holistic development of ground transportation infrastructure. In addition, expanding into underserved areas must be carefully balanced with economic feasibility to ensure sustainable growth in the aviation sector," Pragya Priyadarshini, vice-president at Primus Partners, a consultancy.
"Passenger traffic growth of Airlines is directly correlated with the economic growth. We are seeing rapid urbanisation of our cities and hence going forward we will see many of the tier 2 airports also doubling up to cater to international traffic. We clearly see a need for second / third airport in many of the current tier 1 locations.
We could also see dedicated cargo handling airports/ terminals in the next decade," Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, Senior Director & Global Head - Consulting, Crisil Market Intelligence and Analytics said.Boo
