- Aviation: We should not go complacent with our four million arrivals. We are yet to be connect from traffic generating markets. We have no flights from Latin American countries. Even we do not use our full capacity because our national carriers do not use the capacity available under bilateral treaty because of lack of aircrafts.
- So air capacity is always remained a big problem. We must allow all those foreign airlines who are willing to fly to India without putting lot of conditions or privatize soon our national carriers so that it becomes competitive or we loose business. As potential clients are not going to wait. They have many more destinations to choose from.
- In the aviation field our problems are all the more complex with aviation related taxes. States should reduce ATF tax (which varies from 4% to 25% from State to State).
- Our Airports are outdated, they need total face lift to take more charters, new age aircrafts and up market business traffic.
- Airports forms first impression & we cannot create right image with present conditions of our airports.
- We need to relax the charter norms. This will help us to combat off seasonal problems. New airports can take away congestion from metropolitan cities & open up new tourist centers that can ensure balanced growth of tourism all over the country.
The Indian aviation & tourism industry is seeing rapid changes, rapid traffic growth, massive fleet orders, and new set of budget airlines. The year 2005 was marked by the entry of no less than five new carriers including Air India Express, Spice Jet, Kingfisher airlines, Paramount Airways & Go Air representing variety of different models of aircrafts. Several more carriers are planning to launch service in 2006 including Jagsons, Indigo, Premier to name a few.
To take advantage of the market growth both new & incumbent carriers have been ordering aircraft at a rate never seen before in India. Notable among there was an order of 100 aircrafts by Indigo and the first Indian order of A-380 aircraft by Kingfisher airline. By the end of the year Indian carries are going to place order for 400 aircrafts. An incredible number when compared to the total combined number currently operating is only half of that.
- Indian airlines & Air India are not behind. They are also going for heavy orders, Jet Airways have heavy orders.
