Is there room for a regional airline?
|
Connecting Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns with metros fits into ‘hub and spokes’ concept
|
The metro airports will function as the hubs, with the other airports in the State or region becoming the spokes, linking them to the hub and connecting them to other national and international services.
— FILE PHOTO
IN THE RECKONING: This Air Deccan flight was the first to land on the new 10,000-ft runway of the Visakhapatnam airport, which was formally thrown open to regular flights on June 15.
In yet another policy formulation, the Union Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel, has announced the creation of a new category of scheduled operations — Regional airlines. This will apply to both fixed wing and helicopter operators, and will be confined to services within a region, dividing the country into four regions — north, south, west, and east/ northeast.
This announcement has met with a mixed response from both airline circles and aviation industry sources. But there appears to be a general consensus that this classification could have waited for the process of acquisitions, mergers, and consolidation to take place in the airline industry. Civil Aviation officials, however, insist that it was unveiled only to enable the various airlines to draw up their roadmaps for future growth and development. “We want the airlines to think of this category and factor this into their plans for growth and diversification,” a senior official explains.
Smaller centres
Whatever the nomenclature, the role of a regional airline was played by different airlines at different times, and without a restriction of the region. For instance, Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Indian Airlines, was meant to connect the Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns in the country, with the State capitals or metros, so that it became a feeder airline to its parent. When Air Deccan was launched, it focused on tapping the rural and regional markets and stepped up services to many smaller centres. Kingfisher and Paramount Airways, in their own way, focused on serving some of the smaller centres such as Pune, Mangalore, Vijawada, Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore and Madurai. They have spread their wings beyond them. Industry sources say that the introduction of regional airlines, operating with particular regions, fits into the larger concept of a ‘hub and spokes’.
The metro airports will function as the hubs, with the other airports in the State or region becoming the spokes, linking them to the hub and connecting them to other national and international services. “This is the original concept and even the U.S. developed on these lines. We had New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco functioning as the major hubs, which were linked to all airports. Even today, many airlines in the U.S. operate on this principle and we have instances of passengers being forced to take a circuitous route because they have to pass through a hub,” explains a veteran travel agent who organises several world tours.
But a recent contradiction to this concept stemmed from the development of the long haul aircraft. Originally, it was the Boeing 747 or Jumbo aircraft, that introduced the non-stop service over longer distances. But now a whole new range of aircraft from both the American and the European aircraft majors — Boeing and Airbus — cater to this segment. And they are no longer flying to just the major international hubs such as London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, and Paris or Frankfurt. Because of the birth of international terrorism, and the visa restrictions, business travellers as well as tourists, now prefer to fly direct to the destinations of their choice. So, many of the global airlines are connecting them directly to centres such as Brussels, Newark, Chennai, or Bangkok, for example.
Though trade and industry have welcomed the categorisation of regional airlines, in general, its operations in the south may not meet the objectives.
As Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad fall in the southern region, but come under the classification of metro airports, a regional airline serving the south, can stop with connecting just these cities. The existing airlines already serve them well enough. What the Aviation Ministry needs to do is to specify that the regional airline must connect Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns with these metros, and not stop with just flying between the metro airports.
The metro airports will function as the hubs, with the other airports in the State or region becoming the spokes, linking them to the hub and connecting them to other national and international services.
V. JAYANTH
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Business
