RECENTLY, the North Eastern Council had floated tenders for airline companies and other interested entrepreneurs for a viability gap fund for operating a regional airline. That a very few companies submitted their bids indicates the region’s isolation in terms of attracting entrepreneurs. The existing operators will not be inclined to relocate their human resources and technical assets to the Northeast, and will continue to operate to the region using its airports as transit stops notwithstanding what funds are provided. For new start-ups the market density in the Northeast is still hazy.

Commercial viability being the primary consideration, the driver of any regional airline is frequency of flights on a given sector. The lack of any commercial and industrial vibrancy in the region precludes high frequency of flights. The market is mostly for sectors which connect the region with the metro cities of the country. An international flight from Guwahati to Bangkok, which was started with much fanfare, appears to have been given a quiet burial, and it was little more than a domestic flight from Guwahati to Kolkata. Direct flights to Southeast Asian destinations from the region will be possible only if Myanmar opens up its airspace for a new air traffic services route (ATS route), which is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Airlines are operating in routes within Northeast under a regulatory stipulation tagged to a social clause. Departures from airports here are dependent on the arrival of flights from outside the region. Nowhere is this brought home more clearly than the fact that the departure lounge at Guwahati international airport does not have a departure time schedule board but only arrival times. Delayed flights and missed connections are common. Two airlines had inducted 40-seat ATR 42 aircraft for regional operations but based them in Kolkata. There is no merit in dedicating a regional service if the aircraft are to be based outside the region. In order to balance the low revenue from intra-regional operations, a new airline must be tailored to provide connectivity both on the regional as well on some domestic trunk routes of the country. Turbo-props require lower initial investment and are economical to operate, but have limitations of speed and range for operating on trunk routes. Today good regional jets are available in the market which fly faster and longer distances without refuelling.

The civil airports of Agartala, Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Imphal are all-weather day/night operational airfields with the basic (Cat I) instrument landing system (ILS) which provide electronic guidance to landing aircraft in poor visibility enabling them to descend on the approach down to two hundred feet above ground for sighting the runway. Dimapur, Lilabari, Lengpui and Silchar are equipped with VOR/NDB facilities which are not precision landing aids, and aircraft have to discontinue the approach at a higher height if the runway is not sighted. Barapani, Tura, Ziro, Pasighat and Tezu are fit for only clear weather and daytime operations as they do not have electronic landing aids and runway lights. Some others like Kamalpur in Tripura and Rupsi near Dhuburi in Assam remain unutilized. Though LGBI Guwahati is the best equipped in terms of navigation and landing aids and is the only one in the region equipped with radar, in terms of other facilities it is still a far cry from the labelled international status. Merely anointing an airport as international does not make it so. Three new greenfield airports at Itanagar, Kohima and Pakyong (Sikkim) are in feasibility study stages. However, airports without the appropriate navigation and landing aids are little better than patches of concrete. Airports located in hilly terrain may not facilitate year-round operations without upgradation and lengthening of runways.

Well-constructed wartime airstrips lie disused, overrun by vegetation, mostly encroached upon and are no longer discernible. Mornai in Goalpara and Bogorijeng in Golaghat, Pallel and Koirangi in Manipur, Shella in Meghalaya, Khowai and Kailashar in Tripura are but some examples. Air taxis using aircraft of about six seat capacity with stand-alone capabilities i.e. able to operate with minimum of ground support, can use such airstrips which are still usable for ‘bush operations’. Such airstrips can also facilitate setting up of flying training institutions and aircraft maintenance repair overhaul (MRO) units by private entrepreneurs. Along with the few tea plantation airstrips these can be used for tea, golf, and wildlife tourism. Also, numerous water bodies such as lakes and river tributaries can facilitate connectivity with remote areas by utilizing floatplanes, for wilderness cum recreational/adventure tourism. Floatplanes can land on water without the need to create airports and can operate right into the heart of some towns. Helicopters, though versatile, are costly to operate and maintain.

However, regulations will need to be modified somewhat for such operations. The government has a problem in allowing carriage of revenue passengers to and from austere airstrips without air traffic control and safety services. In the US, Canada and Australia, small aircraft including floatplanes are used extensively for connecting cities and towns with remote areas in the Colorado, the Rockies and the Alaskan wilds, conveying wilderness explorers, anglers, rafters, climbers, etc operating to and from unmanned airstrips, lakes and farms. Even pilots with private pilots licence often operate these flights by documenting the passengers as people sharing the cost of fuel. The legendary ‘Bush Pilots’ of the Australian outback have contributed in no small measure to the air connectivity of that country. The governments of those countries and have full trust and confidence on their citizens whereas here in India it is doubtful whether policy makers have the stomach for giving such liberties to the civil aviation entrepreneur. One needs to just look out of the lounges through the glass of the glitzy Bangkok airports to see small aircraft taking off every thirty minutes or so for exotic tourist destinations in the country or even beyond its borders into Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

In other countries, setting up an airline is not such a big deal as it is in India. Their worries are about stiff competition. Whereas in India, non-viability of airlines are the result of being treated as cash cows by levying heavy doses of taxation and high charges at every step, as strangely, air travel is still considered a luxury to be milked as per the luxury segment. These charges e.g. tax on fuel, airport charges, RNFC, etc should be adjusted, or even waived in case of new start-ups for a limited period, to somewhat offset the high basic fuel prices which rise and fall periodically. The aviation sector is an important engine of growth with the public being the end beneficiary. It is a capital intensive and financially a high-risk enterprise. The high employment potential of civil aviation and the supporting services should not be overlooked. For this important industry to mature the government will need to nurture it with a helping hand by making the regulatory environment more entrepreneur-friendly. Otherwise, the dog days of civil aviation will continue.

DJ Sarma