Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Tuesday that India needed to develop an airport which would be a global hub for international flights
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“There must be an international hub in India. I think it is an important opportunity that we have an international hub within India so that many issues have to come together,” said Mr. Scindia at an event organised by industry body Assocham.
He said that for this vision to come true India must “have anchor airlines at particular airports, and airlines must have wide body aircraft to transport passengers internationally.” There would also be a need to build synergy between domestic and international departures, he said. Some airports such as the Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport had cumbersome transfers between domestic and international terminals which airlines had flagged as a roadblock for developing an airport as a hub.
Several countries that boast of hub airports, also have anchor airlines that bring a large chunk of traffic to them such as United Arab Emirates two flag carriers Emirates and Etihad that bring traffic to Dubai and Abu Dhabi respectively, or Turkey’s Turkish Airlines.
The Minister also said that while there were 200 million domestic and international air passengers in India before COVID-19, this number would reach 400 million over the next seven to 10 years. The country was also projected to have a total of 220 airports, including heliports and aerodromes, by 2026.