BY RYOSUKE ONO, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
NEW DELHI–The plane left Chennai in southern India on a beautiful March day, and after an uneventful flight arrived on time in the sky over New Delhi.
Then came the announcement: “We have to wait for our turn to obtain approval for landing. Our flight is the 14th (in line). Please wait for the time being.”
The passengers on the aircraft sighed.
The plane began circling. Finally, 30 minutes later, it got permission to land.
The scene is far from rare in India’s overheating airline industry.
Government deregulation has given birth to a slew of low-fare airlines, allowing the middle-class to choose air travel over horrendously overcrowded trains. Airport facilities, however, are not up to the job. They have been overwhelmed by the rapid increase in the number of airlines and passengers.
Serious delays are now a regular occurrence. And a shortage of pilots and maintenance workers is also likely to become a big problem.
Private airlines were first allowed in India in 1990. Since then, commercial carriers such as Jet Airways and Air Sahara have become big industry players.
Then in 2003, the low-fare Air Deccan was born. Its success encouraged the launch of several other similar low-cost airlines, including Kingfisher Airlines and SpiceJet.
Eleven airlines now fight it out for passengers, and five to 10 more are expected to spring up soon. Since last year, Indian airlines have ordered 300 additional planes.
The booming industry is bolstered by India’s remarkable economic growth, which has been as high as 6 to 8 percent in recent years. Air travel is no longer an impossible luxury for many Indians. They are turning away from trains in record numbers.
That should be good news for Indian airlines. Instead, the intensifying competition has them talking of a crisis.
One of the largest private airlines here is Jet Airways, a dominant carrier that accounted for 46 percent of the domestic market in fiscal 2002. The last few years have been tough on the airline, though.
In January, it announced it was purchasing the second largest private airline, Air Sahara, for about $500 million. If the sale goes through, Jet Airways’s market share will jump back up to nearly 50 percent.
Air Deccan, for its part, is taking a different tack to stay alive. Rather than gobbling up the competition, it is cutting costs.
In-flight meals now come at a small charge. Advertising space is being sold inside the planes. And the airline has arranged for gasoline stations and mobile phone companies to be used as portals to take reservations and sell tickets.
“Our motto is, ‘Let’s bring middle-class people to the air,’” said Aradhana Gaur, senior manager of the airline’s Business Development Department in charge of northern India.
“We want to attract people who are likely to have graduated from trains.”
While long-distance transportation in India is still dominated by the rail network, low fares have allowed many more people to take to the air.
For example, on conventional full-service airlines such as Jet Airways and state-run Indian Airlines, flights from New Delhi to the western financial hub of Mumbai run around 6,000 rupees (about 15,000 yen).
Low-cost carriers, though, are able to offer the same flight for around 3,500 rupees. Some tickets even come in under 3,000 rupees. That is cheaper than a first-class train ticket, which costs 4,135 rupees.
It may not be as cheap as the popular 2,210-rupee second-class tickets for seats on air-conditioned cars. On the other hand, it doesn’t take 17 to 24 hours to get there, either.
“Given that time is important, air travel is becoming an option for many businessmen,” said Bobby Bhatia, who owns a travel company in New Delhi.
The government of India has decided to modernize airport facilities. In January, it picked two companies to start projects in New Delhi and Mumbai.
However, said an industry source who asked not to be identified, “Airport infrastructure is not a serious problem.”
The big problem, the source said, is how to secure enough capable pilots and maintenance workers. Demand currently far outstrips supply.
“In the near future, there could be a situation in which there are airplanes but not pilots,” the source said.
The growth is expected to continue. Except for Mumbai and Kolkata, most of the country’s airports have a lot of surrounding land that can accommodate large-scale expansion.
Kapil Kaul, a researcher at the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) think tank who covers the Subcontinent and the Middle East, says the games are just beginning.
“The real competition among airlines will begin around 2010 when major airports have sufficient facilities,” he said.(IHT/Asahi: May 24,2006)
