India 360: Is India flying high?

As the sixth Biennial Aero India Air Show in Bangalore, India is all set to buy a lot of expensive military aircraft. India's military aircraft market is already reportedly worth $10 billion and the Eleventh Five Year Plan period would see India procuring defence equipment worth anywhere between $8 to $10 billion.

Companies vying to bag the lucrative contract are France's Dassault (Rafale), Russia's RAC-MiG (MiG-29M2), Sweden's Saab (JAS-39 Gripen) and Lockheed Martin (F-16) and Boeing (F-18) of the US - many of which participated in the flight displays at Bangalore.

Does the country really need these extravagant machines? Experts say the Indian Civil Aviation market is growing explosive, but what about infrastructure constraints?

The question that was being asked on India 360 was: Will India drive the global aviation industry in the years to come?

On the panel of experts to try and answer the question were Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi; MD, Air Deccan, Captain G R Gopinath; and

Senior Vice-President, Center for Asia Pacific Aviation Kapil Kaul.

Why does India need so many new fighter planes?

India is going to acquire some 40 new Russian Sukhoi-30 fighters, there is a likelihood that we will acquire Hercules aircraft from the United States, the Indian Air Force has floated tenders on a 126 fighter jets and all of this is going to cost billions of dollars. What is the reason that we need so many expensive fighter aircraft?

To this Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi said, "If India has to grow economically, there has to be peace and stability around us. And history tells us that peace and stability is not possible without a certain amount of military muscle. In terms of Air Force acquisition, it is not that we will have to pay billions of dollars on Day One. This is something that is spread out over many many years. A 126 fighter jets will take a decade or more to produce. I would like to believe that we have worked out what we need and what is necessary."

Has decision making on defence purchases become very slow and painful after the Bofors scandal?

It took India 15 years to purchase the badly needed Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) and by the time the country could purchase it, they were more expensive than when the negotiations first started. So has the process of defence purchase become very dilatory and very slow?

However, Tyagi denied this saying that it is a process that has actually become faster.

"The AJT took 15 years, but the newer aeroplanes will take much less. We have revised our procurement procedures twice in the last two years and the system is actually functioning. We were unable to spend the amount of money that Parliament would grant us as a defence budget. Today the situation is very much different and the system is much faster," he said.

Nonetheless, he added that it was a constant process, which could not be completed overnight.

Is India losing air-superiority to Pak?

The Air Chief Marshall had recently written an agonising letter to the Defence Minister saying that India was losing air-superiority to Pakistan. He said that whatever he had brought to the notice of the Government had been noted and that appropriate action would be taken.

He said that the new purchases were a result of the combined analysis of the Air Force and the Government of the issues that he had made in his letter.

When asked whether our politicians taking national security seriously enough, he said that Indians should have more faith in their system. "India is not growing by 9.2 per cent now without a system existing. I would like to assure everyone that the politicians elected by us take national security as seriously as anybody else does because they are first the citizens of India and then leaders of the country."

So the Air Chief has advised the Government to move on from MiGs, which have been the backbone of the Indian Air Force, to F-16s and the Government has complied. How is the F-16 superior to the MiG?

"I do not know yet whether we are going to get the F-16s or not. We have yet to send out the requests for proposals. The proposals will go out to various vendors, there will be technical evaluations and it will take a while before we understand which aircraft to buy. And we need to understand that aircraft is only part of it. What is more important is what goes into the aircraft like radar, missiles, weapons, weapon delivery and rates. It is a very complex issue," he said.

Is there something sinister about the way all these arms dealers have descended on India? Is there a feeling that the world does not need the arms, but that India - with its ambition - is hungry for more and more military hardware and sophisticated weaponry?

The Air Chief Marshall completely denied this saying that this is an open market and that these people had not come through some backdoor. "To buy or not to buy is purely a national decision. No one can force a country like ours to buy weapons and aircraft. Everybody knows that we are in the market to buy 126 fighter jets and this is the way market forces play."

He added that in fact many who were earlier not interested in the Indian market have now become interested in the same. "I think we should rejoice and not instead think that there is anything sinister in it."

He said that after nearly five decades of military isolation from the US, there is now a possibility that India will buy the Hercules and that the negotiations were on.

Explosive market, but infrastructural problems

The low cost flying revolution has been the great success story of indian civil aviation. Today the market is worth between $76 to over $100 million and this is just the beginning. Yet some experts say that the low cost travel boom is perhaps more wishful thinking rather than practical reality.

To this Senior Vice-President, Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, Kapil Kaul said, "In the last two years we have witnessed phenomenal growth. There has been a 25 per cent growth in domestic and 15 per cent growth in international. The domestic traffic has grown by 46 per cent and in the last 18 months we have added 140 aircraft. So clearly this kind of growth was unexpected and out infrastructure was not designed to cater to this growth. However, the Government has realised that if we have to realise the potential of our Aviation Industry, we must invest in the infrastructure and facilities at our airports - not just the ground infrastructure but also the air side infrastructure."

He added that India has a committed $9 billion infrastructure which is going to parry out till 2010 and by then India should have a world class infrastructure. "However, clearly for the next two or three years time its going to be a problem though I expect things to get better as we move forward."

Despite the infrastructure getting better, there have been scary reports in the recent past of near misses, no parallel runways, Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) who are not able to communicate properly with foreign pilots, shortage of trained pilots and engineers. All this seems to be a recipe for disaster.

However, Kaul did not agree to this saying that he would like to place on record that the skies were very safe. "If you look at the role of our technical regulator and if you look at the technical regulations, they are more stringent than US, UK and even Europe. Nonetheless, there is a bit of an issue when we explode at the rate at which we are and the only investment is there on the ground capabilities. We need to assess the ATC's capability and other issues relating to air safety."

Is the low cost flying revolution going to remain so?

To this MD, Air Deccan, Captain G R Gopinath - who many consider is the father of the low cost revolution in India - said, "See low cost will remain low cost because the model itself is very different. Four years ago, before Air Deccan started, Bangalore to Delhi cost Rs 12,300. Today, people fly the same distance for Rs 4,900 with 80 per cent occupancy. There could be a slight increase in fares. from Rs 4,900 it could go up to about Rs 5,300, but it will still be about half the price of other airlines because our costs are half those of other airlines."

There has been this issue that low cost airlines are very vulnerable to terrorist attacks. So what can be done to ensure that as we increase our flying traffic, this flying traffic should remain adequately secure?

He said that though there has been this issue, if one sees the total number of aircraft in India in commercial aviation, it is a paltry, measly 250 aircraft. He said that it was not as if our airports are crowded leaving them open to attack, but it was because there has been an unprecedented growth in the amount of people who are flying and thus our airports seem crowded.

At the end of the day, the conclusion that was reached was that India was not equipped to handle the unprecedented growth in the flying traffic and that infrastructure at airports needs to be improved.

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