By Ameya Joshi
India’s aviation journey is all set to ‘Up’ the game. Does investment at airports serving as gateways to offer excellent hubs support such an ambition?
The focus is on growing international traffic; with IndiGo going on record stating that the majority of their growth in the next five years will be reflected through international routes. Air India, has predominantly been an international carrier. The TATA Group will also look at some form of consolidation and co-operation where they hold stakeholder positions.
As IndiGo moves towards induction of additional A321neos and eventually the A321XLR along with Air India looking at a fleet revamp trying to offer more connections, there is another area where the two will battle it out – codeshares and interlines. Air India is a Star Alliance member but the last few years have seen little movement on the integration with the airlines in the alliance. Lack of good product and system challenges have been the primary reason. On the other hand, after the fall of Jet Airways and IndiGo’s move to GDS – the airline has attracted a fair bit of interest from global players for codesharing. The airline has a codeshare with Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Air France – KLM, American Airlines and Qantas – Jetstar.
As more and more passengers use airports in India as a hub to transfer and opt for non-stop flights to foreign shores, there is one peculiar problem, which inhibits India from performing as an efficient hub, fragmented operations across terminals!
For years, there were only two major gateways – Mumbai and Delhi. At both airports, the international and domestic terminals were separate. When Delhi commissioned T3 and Mumbai saw T2 being operational, it was the first time that full service carriers had their operations concentrated in a single terminal. Low cost airlines had not started flying international routes when T3 was inaugurated at Delhi in 2010.
Gradually the LCCs played catch up and launched international routes. With initial efforts to offer international services from T1 were deemed unsuccessful mainly due to security and other concerns, the international flights of IndiGo and SpiceJet began from T3 and T2 at Delhi and Mumbai respectively.
When Bengaluru airport started operations – the integrated terminal model was put to test in its true sense. The swing gates and design, which helps use the same portion for domestic and international based on time of the day, space posed a problem as the airport saw traffic literally explode! Hyderabad had a similar challenge.
The design was pro-FSC until April 2019 when Jet Airways shut down and its slots distributed amongst other carriers. With a lack of FSC carriers – LCCs became even more powerful in Indian skies and occupied the space at terminals, which were hitherto earmarked only for FSCs. IndiGo – the largest carrier in the country by fleet, and domestic market share has grown more in the direction of a network carrier leaving behind its point-to-point methodology of a true LCC.
The Need & Challenge
The rules around immigration and customs clearance differ widely across the world. In India, the immigration and customs clearance is completed at the first point of arrival. Connecting passengers then have to work their way towards the check-in for the next flight. Delhi – the largest airport in the country has three terminals with all international arrivals and departures at T3 – irrespective of the airline. Terminal 2 sees flights from Go First (which does not have a codeshare or interline with any carrier) and select flights from IndiGo. Terminal 1 has operations of IndiGo and SpiceJet.
With India becoming predominantly a LCC landscape, codeshares with LCCs are becoming common. The old thought of having a terminal, which serves international and domestic flights occupied by FSCs is no longer valid.
A fragmented model not only influences Domestic to International and International to Domestic connectivity, it affects Domestic-to-Domestic connectivity. At Delhi, for example, the largest airport in the country – there are flights coming from 60+ destinations in India. Passengers connect from one part to another via Delhi and many of them on IndiGo – since it has the maximum connectivity as well as presence at Delhi. However operations across terminals are not connected, and passengers have extended waiting times and inconvenient and uncomfortable transfers.
Though T2 and T3 at Delhi are in close proximity of each other, they remain unconnected internally. T1, on the other hand, is further apart, the buses provided for the shuttle service between T1, and T2/T3 are not up to the standards of an international airport.
Consider landing from JFK at Delhi, clear immigration and customs and realise the need to take a shuttle to T1 for the next leg of the journey. That is time consuming and exhausting after particularly long journeys. Navigating the incomprehensible transfer challenge is not exactly an inspiring thought.
During the recent past Jet Airways’ operations saw the airline, launch a flight to Singapore from Pune. This flight connected well on arrival from Abu Dhabi and few passengers booked the PNQ SIN connection Abu Dhabi to Singapore via Pune. To their horror, an international-to-international connection needed immigration formality at Pune.
This at a terminal that is in desperate need of an upgrade even for domestic flights. Indeed Pune Airport is another saga altogether. The need for a logical and much needed investment is long overdue for Pune Airport. The city that has steadily developed into an industrial hub but remains disconnected in terms of good air connections both for domestic and international traffic, attributed to an underdeveloped infrastructure in terms of investment.
Solutions A Need Of The Hour
As the country aims to be a hub for international travel and traffic from the Middle Eastern and European hubs, the traffic will have to be routed via Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru amongst others in the first phase and these airports will have to compete with Dubai, Doha, Frankfurt, Heathrow and others. If you have to land from somewhere and board a substandard public transport bus to change terminals before boarding your international flight, the passenger would just look at options from his city or the nearest one to experience hassle free transit and the benefits of perceived better duty free and shopping options at airports outside India.
Delhi and Bengaluru airports have both embarked on expansion programmes and it may not be too late that the airport planners, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and regulators look beyond the current apparatus and work on ways to have seamless connectivity between terminals. The likes of Frankfurt or Singapore – which are global hubs with strong local carriers, have internal monorails to connect passengers across multiple terminals. Can Delhi do the same? The concerns around security and keeping passengers in sterile areas as against letting them through another several rounds of security is what makes the experience a pleasant one and until that happens – the aim of Indian airports to be global hubs will have to wait.
India has bags of potential to create employment within the hospitality sector, which includes travel, for its motivated, educated and digitally savvy young population, who are not just eager to succeed but are ready to take on the challenges in a highly competitive environment. Initiatives supported by private/public enterprises could be the answer for starters.
