Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Myriad hurdles keep civil aviation from soaring

The September 11 terror strikes in the US left an indelible scar on the global aviation sector as also the Indian scene this year, which saw the divestment process plunging into an airpocket with the government striving to put both Air-India and Indian Airlines back on track.

It has since been trying to bring in a forward-looking civil aviation policy focussing on gradual privatisation of the sector.

Two crashes also marred the domestic aviation scenario including one in which senior Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia and four journalists were killed, even as the government upped its efforts to introduce sophisticated communication and navigation system, including Category IIIA instrument landing system (ILS) in Delhi airport.

Even as stringent measures were being implemented to strengthen security at airports and inside aircraft following the 11/9 terror attacks, a 'hoax' hijack episode occurred with the over-cautious crew of an Alliance Air Mumbai-Delhi flight reacting to an innocuous situation sending the aviation security apparatus in a tizzy and keeping the prime minister and home minister, among others, awake all night.

The civil aviation ministry saw a change of guard with Sharad Yadav and Chaman Lal Gupta being shifted out and the young Shahnawaz Hussain inducted as the sole incharge.

The sacking of A-I managing director M P Mascarenhas on corruption charges and his subsequent re-instatement after being cleared also marked the year.

The second crash in March was that of a small plane, like the one carrying Scindia, in which filmstar-turned-politician Sunil Dutt was injured after it developed a snag and crash-landed near Nasik. Following these two incidents, the government decided to lay down stricter flying norms for small aircraft charter companies.

Besides the 'hoax' hijack episode, another security lapse occurred when four Afghan nationals boarded an A-I flight and landed at Heathrow without tickets or proper travel documents.

The divestment process of A-I, which was affected earlier by withdrawal of Singapore Airlines as a strategic partner of the Tatas, got stalled when Tata Sons expressed inability to find another foreign partner primarily due to the global slump in the aviation industry.

Two other bidders in the race for buying IA stake - Hindujas and Videocon - were disqualified for different reasons.

With the divestment process in the backburner, the ministry decided to seek injection of funds from government coffers to strengthen A-I and IA and also decided to allow them to start the process of aircraft acquisition, which was earlier stopped with a view to allowing the strategic partner have a say in the matter.

Both A-I and IA have since begun the process, with the A-I leasing four more aircraft to replace its ageing fleet and IA also following suit.

IA subsidiary, Alliance Air, is shortly beginning the process of acquiring six turboprop ATR planes for operations on feeder routes, especially in the northeast.

ALSO READ:
2001: The Year That Was...
Air-India: Of divestment and other issues