Enhanced Regional Air Transportation in India- Needs, Issues And Challenges

Abstract

The Indian economy has been growing between 7-9% per annum in the last few years. However much of this growth has taken place in the metros and other major cities. To sustain this growth, it is essential that growth spreads beyond the metros to interior regions of the country. For sustained economic growth, one of the key requirements is connectivity. Air transportation has been acknowledged world over as an important facilitator for economic growth. In particular, affordable air connectivity has proved vital for the smaller towns and cities to attract investment from high technology business. Also to sustain adequate traffic, it is important for the ticket prices to be affordable to the local population and this can only be achieved by the aircraft, right sized incorporating advanced technologies leading to reduced acquisition and operating cost and such an aircraft should have capability to operate from ill equipped airfields in all weather conditions. The key requirements are defined and main technologies that would enable development of such an aircraft are also defined.