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Govt studying market demand, growth -- Take-off may be delayed for new private airlines

Ashwini Phadnis

NEW DELHI, May 20

SEVERAL private airlines may take time for take-off with the Ministry of Civil Aviation indicating that permission is unlikely to be given to any new players till a clear indication is available about the growth trends in the market.

Senior Ministry officials told Business Line that they are awaiting the completion of a study on how the market is growing which is being undertaken as part of the Tenth Plan document.

Justifying the decision of not giving approval pending completion of the study, Ministry officials said that while in the past three years, there had been little or no growth in the domestic air traffic market, there had been a spurt in demand for domest ic air seats with the market growing at 8-9 per cent during the current year.

Meanwhile, the Ministry has set up a high-powered panel to advice the Planning Commission on the growth pattern of the domestic aviation sector.

However, officials were quick to add that the completion of the study was not the only reason why more operators were not being allowed to take to their wings.

Without giving details of specific projects, officials indicated that most of the projects which had been refused permission to fly in the domestic skies did not comply with the norms.

``The Ministry is not closed to the idea of allowing more operators. However, we will like to ascertain the demand in the market and how the traffic is growing before any decision is taken. Besides, if the operators meet the laid down procedures for star ting an airline, we will need to take a hard look on what needs to be done in view of the ongoing study,'' Ministry officials said.

Officials also indicated that the number of non-scheduled operators meeting the criterion for starting operations was larger than the number of players meeting the criteria for becoming scheduled carriers.