Airport privatisation is hot news these days. There is no denying the long overdue need to privatise them for the sake of modernisation. The airport unions are apparently a power unto themselves just as bank employees and transport operators are!
But what we may need to realise is the shadowy role of the military in Indian civil aviation. They control a big chunk of airspace including for international overflight purposes. They also control about 20 airports where there are so called civil enclaves (CEs). At these CEs like HAL/Bangalore, Dabolim/Goa, Lohegaon/Pune and others there are fairly severe restrictions on civilian flights imposed by the needs of military flight training for several hours each day. In addition aircraft parking space is very limited and expansion of operations to keep pace with economic demand is very tardy due to the perennial "security considerations". Civilian air traffic is forced to opt for distant and costly greenfield airports and shift from CEs! This is the experience at Kochi where a new Cochin airport came up 6 years ago. Its high time the MILITARY moved to new airfields and freed CEs in this era of low cost air travel in India.
