Sometimes, figures speak
more than the words. Recently I perused
with interest the global aviation traffic (top 50) which revealed several
insights about the gap some emerging countries like India faces in the global
aviation traffic market place.
The top 50 airports in the
world shared by 23 countries ferried 2.3 billion passengers accounting for 50%
of the global population during 2013. USA leads the pack in terms of total passenger
traffic nearly thrice the size of its population and boast of the largest
network of airports to support this traffic density. Nearly 814 million people
travel every year through 17 airport network within USA with Hartsfield–Jackson
Atlanta International Airport being the largest ferrying around 94 million
passengers followed by O'Hare International Airport with about 66 million. In
terms of global ranking, Beijing Capital International Airport is now second
largest after Atlanta International Airport with about 83 million passengers.
However, it is the combined strength that matters more here than individual
airports. At 17 airports, USA is air miles ahead of all other countries with
China accounting for 7 airports in the top 50.
Dubai tops the table from a
density point of view (defined as total passengers that pass through its airport
relative to its population). At 66 million passengers, it transports 30 times
its tiny population. Singapore Netherlands and UK also follow this hub model
where there is distinct lack of connect with local population and aviation
travellers though not as pronounced as Dubai.
USA is a case of domestic
demand triggering the growth while countries like Australia, Spain, Malaysia and
Turkey relying probably on tourist traffic to populate its air traffic density.
How about the BRIC’s?
Excepting China which made inroads in the traffic density, all other countries
are laggards with India being a notable one. With a population exceeding a
billion, India’s total air passengers numbered only 68 million, a measly 6% of
its population compared with 25% for China, 257% for USA and 3000% for Dubai.
Though two airports figure in the top 50, (Delhi and Mumbai), the gap is
significant and noticeable. Poor airport infrastructure, lack of focus to
develop the country as a tourist destination, security concerns, affordability,
poor regulations and above all economic stagnation all contribute to this sorry
state of affairs. The train travel is also heavily subsidized making the
conversion very difficult. While the noise made by low cost airlines and the
associated price wars is interesting and may give an impression that Indian
aviation is probably full of activity, statistics show that we have raced to
the bottom over time and have a huge catch up to do. While in this race of
global aviation traffic, there are several hare’s (USA, China, Dubai, etc.),
there is only one tortoise!
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