$12b for airports; India comes up with massive aviation plan for future

NEW DELHI - India will spend a whopping 980 billion rupees ($12 billion) over the next two years on airports as the country prepares for welcoming tourists ready to board planes after the pandemic. 

India aims to boost the number of airports to 220 by 2025 from the current 148. Fr the futuristic vision, private builders will invest about $9 billion and state-run Airports Authority of India will invest the rest.

The refurbishing involves greenfield projects, new terminals and the renovation of existing facilities to provide state of the art facilities to all those who are ready to fly off to far off places or land in India as the Covid-19 pandemic has finally subsided, Bloomberg reports.

The news comes weeks after India’s famous airline, Air India stunned the aviation world by placing orders for whopping 470 Boeing and Airbus passenger jets.

AirIndia is country’s largest international airline and it has made headlines with the purchase of 220 Boeing aircraft valued at $34bn and 250 passenger jets from manufacturer Airbus.

The mind bending deal is Airbus’ third-largest sale of all time, in dollar value, and its second of all time in terms of quantity.

The deal is so big that even the US President Joe Biden termed the agreement ‘historic’ and discussed it telephonically with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Air India is eyeing to capture the market dominated by middle-class Indians and is putting in efforts to expand its operations and modernise its fleet. The airline’s owner firm, Tata is also challenging its rival IndiGo on multiple fronts.

“India is going to be the world’s third-largest market in the aviation sector,” Modi said in conversation with Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The premier said India will need more than 2,000 aircraft over the next 15 years and the deal would help meet the growing demand. On the other hand, Macron called the deal a “new success” and an opportunity to “develop new areas of cooperation with India”.

The Boeing order includes 190 737 Max aircraft, 20 of its 787s and 10 of its 777Xs while the total worth of the deal is unknown as Airbus has not disclosed it. An interesting aspect of the deal is that India can buy an additional 370 planes from the manufacturers, possibly taking the number of planes to 840.

Asia in general and India in particular has seen a rising demand for air travel fueled by hosts of factors including the growth of middle class that now prefers air travel for leisure and work.