The Indian civil aviation industry has witnessed annual
growth rates of upto 30 in recent years. A slew of low-cost airlines now
compete with the more established operators. Modernisation and expansion of
existing and greenfield airports have added capacity. Privatisation of the two
major airports at Mumbai and Delhi has been completed. Two major greenfield
airports were opened at Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Another major
change as a result of deregulation of the commercial aviation sector in India
has been the option for private airlines to fly overseas after completing five
years of operations in the domestic market.
The civil aviation scenery in India has evolved in many
ways. Whereas prior to 1992, when the two public sector airlines, namely
Air-India and Indian Airlines enjoyed a monopoly in the domestic sector, today
almost a dozen airlines are competing for a market share in the rapidly growing
domestic market. In the early nineties, soon after deregulation, many of the
newly established airlines went bust, including Modiluft, Damania (later
Skyline NEPC), Gujarat Airways, East West, UBAir and VIF.
The Delhi-Mumbai sector is one of the busiest air routes in
the world handling over 600 000 passengers in January 2017.
The government owned Airports Authority of India (AAI)
manages 126 airports and civil enclaves out of a total of 449 airports and
airstrips found in India. Indian airports handled over 254 million passengers
in 2016. Freight handled amounted to 2.28 million tons in 2014/15. Less than 80
airports/aerodromes receive regular commercial flights. The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi and Mumbai are
served by privately (or joint-venture) operated airports. All operational
airports handled a total of around 265 million passengers (205.7 m domestic and
59.3 m international) in 2016-17 (Apr-Mar). The total number of aircraft
movements increased to 2.05 million and air freight handled reached 2.53
million tons during 2015-16. With the strong growth witnessed in 2016, India
became the fifth largest civil aviation market in the world (behind the USA,
China, Japan and the UK) based on the 254 million passengers handled at all the
airports.
Foreign air carriers operated 128 charter flights to Goa
(India's main destination for international charter flights) in the 2013-14
season (Oct '13 to May '14).
India's commercial airline fleet is currently among the top
ten nations in the world while the domestic air market holds forth position in
the world.
India is the 9th largest civil aviation market in the world
in FY17.