With the rise in demand for air travel in the country expected to choke several key airports over the next few years, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is set to embark on a study to assess the capacity at 48 of its airports.
The AAI is in the process of selecting a consultant to conduct the survey, for which it had invited bids on June 1. The deadline to submit the initial bids ends on July 10. All the airports together handled a total of 309 million passengers in 2017-2018, while the current capacity of all these airports is 334 million. AAI has forecast a demand of approximately 636 million passengers by 2026-2027. “AAI is contemplating [an assessment of] the existing capacity of the terminal building at the airports … to initiate in advance the strategic action to cope with the forecast traffic, so as to provide required infrastructure and services to its stakeholders at all times,” said the tender document.
Target airports
The airports where the study needs to be carried out include Ahmedabad, Pune and Goa, which handle between 5 million and 10 million passengers per annum.
The airports at Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Bhubaneshwar too require to be studied, among others.
According to a report by aviation think-tank CAPA, India needs to invest up to $45 billion on additional capacity to handle 500-600 million air passengers by 2030.