What a joke this quote is: "Many of their demands are based on facts -- Mumbai and Delhi airports together handle over 70 per cent of passenger traffic and contribute over 80 per cent of revenue and (indirectly) subsidise 124 other airports."
Facts, my foot! It is not Mumbai and Delhi that "subsidise" other airports. It is the hundreds of thousands of Gulf workers from places like Kerala who have to pay through their noses for 4 hour flights what other countries' citizens pay for 12 to 16 hour flights. And why the heck should Mumbai and Delhi be the only airports getting flights? Has anybody heard of Cochin International Airport, whcih, despite the Mumbai-centric policies of AAI, has been running as a profitable company? Is anybody aware that the same Mumbai lobby played a significant part in the delay of Trivandrum airport development for the past three decades?
What is the annual passenger handling capacity of Mumbai and Delhi? Has anybody thought why such a large country as India gets less than 4 million tourists a year, while China gets more than 30 million, and even Singapore - one-third the size of Mumbai - gets 8 million tourists through Changi airport alone?
