ViewPoint

'Air travel is no longer regarded as elitist'

I have watched with fascination (and to a limited extent participated in) the progressive liberalisation of the Indian economy and with it, that of the Indian civil aviation industry since the early 1990s. This process of liberalisation has slowly, but surely, unleashed a vast potential travel market, both for business and tourism, and an opportunity to travel by air for increasingly larger segments of the Indian population.

I am indeed delighted that Indian policy makers have fully recognised the huge contribution that the expansion of air connectivity, both within India and with other countries, makes to the growth of the Indian economy in generating employment and developing subsidiary industries. India is fast emerging as a centre of financial and economic activity, a base for doing jobs for other countries at lower costs.

Notwithstanding the current shortages, I see an enormous scope for India in the long run. For instance, to be an exporter of technically qualified and trained personnel for the aviation industry -aircraft maintenance and avionics engineers, pilots and technicians. But to be able to do this successfully, we will need to build many more schools and training academies and set up new training facilities, so that India can become the centre for meeting the needs of qualified and trained personnel worldwide.

I do not need to emphasise how small a proportion of Indians today (or indeed ever) have travelled by air. Nevertheless, even if we were to restrict ourselves to the affluent middle-class and upwardly mobile segment of the Indian population of probably more than 300 million, the present size of the Indian air travel market of around 18-19 million passengers is clearly a minuscule portion of the total available market. In fact, when you take into account the travel cycle of the average domestic passenger - particularly the Indian business traveller who constitutes between two-thirds and three-fourths of the total air travel market - of around at least three one-way trips per year, the number of individuals travelling by air within India works out to only around six million. The opportunities are, therefore, vast and the successive governments in recent times have given due recognition to the need to implement policies and create an environment that promotes growth of the Indian aviation industry.

The government's policy decision this year to allow privately-owned Indian carriers to operate in the highly competitive international travel market into and out of India is also a step in the right direction. Supported by the aggressive liberalisation of India’s Air Services Agreements with other countries, this policy will go a long way in making the Indian carriers more competitive with the well-established foreign carriers serving the Indian market, improving air links between India and the rest of the world and contributing to tourism in India.

I firmly believe that coordinated and parallel marketing efforts of Air India and Indian Airlines and the privately-owned domestic carriers will enable our country to regain its rightful share of the air travel market into and out of India and assist the Tourism Ministry's promotional efforts in the growth of inbound tourism. For all these initiatives to succeed it is important for the parallel efforts initiated by the government to modernise and improve the supporting nfrastructure. We have the distinct advantage of adopting the best features of all the new airports and terminals that have been built all over the world in recent years whilst designing and building new facilities in our country.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel and we surely have enough talent in our country to design, develop and build the best facilities. Equally important is the need for policy makers to recognise that the Indian aviation industry faces crippling and very high input costs. So unless urgent and active steps are taken to reduce the tax burdens, make productive use of limited resources and bring cost structures in line with those prevailing world-wide, the dream that I have talked of earlier of making air travel affordable to a significantly larger number of my fellow countrymen may never materialise. I strongly urge the government to recognise the role that it has to play to be able to fulfil its own policy objectives, in partnership with the private sector and with the active participation of all players in the industry. India has a long way to go to be able to come anywhere close to reaching international standards in large segments of the travel and tourism industry. What is encouraging, however, is that all of us have woken up to the potential and the possibilities and that slowly, but surely, we are jointly marching towards achieving the goal. No longer is air travel regarded as elitist or the domain of only the privileged.

For me, empowerment of India in the travel and tourism segment will only take place when Indian carriers have demonstrated to the world the standards and qualities of performance that India is capable of; when Indian carriers have succeeded in developing many more tourist destinations in India. There are many crucial areas that need to be tackled. I am confident that we will do this successfully and that we will win the battles and the war. For me personally, it will not be, as Shakespeare wrote, 'love's labour lost' but rather 'love's labour regained'.