Word: airports
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...life's recurring unpleasant moments that Rajiv Mehta, owner of an interior-design company in New Delhi, has come to dread. During Mehta's frequent business trips in India, his flight often approaches its destination only to have the pilot announce that the plane will have to circle the airport for a while-not because there's bad weather or a mechanical glitch, but because of congestion on the ground. Mehta's plight is shared by thousands of his countrymen. Thanks to India's economic prosperity and the booming growth of its airline industry, more Indians are flying today than...
...While passengers are frustrated, so are airlines, which are starting to lose money despite brisk demand. The problem? Air travel has blossomed so quickly in India that the country's superannuated airports have been overwhelmed. After the government opened India's skies to greater competition four years ago, the annual number of domestic and international air passengers has nearly doubled from 48.8 million in the year ended March 31, 2004, to 95 million. Meanwhile nine private airlines have started up in recent years. Some, such as Kingfisher Airlines, are full service, but most are low-cost carriers that have wooed...
...Further consolidation is likely. India, which has 13 airlines today, will eventually have just two or three full-service carriers and three or four budget airlines, predicts Kaul of CAPA. Their health may depend on how quickly planned airport improvements are completed. A new airport is scheduled to open in Bangalore next year; work is also underway on new terminals in New Delhi and Mumbai (formerly Bombay) with completion set for 2010 and 2012 respectively. These improvements can't come soon enough for travelers like Mehta, the New Delhi interior designer. "We've got all these new planes and flights...
...like getting on a bus--without the glamour. Meals have been reduced to peanuts and soda, pillows plucked from under our heads, the warmth of flying gone with the blankets. The industry's perennial woes--high fuel, labor and capital costs--have led to a traveler's hell of airport fees, climbing fares, flight delays and abysmal service...
...time," he says, "and in all honesty, five years ago you'd probably be put in jail for doing this." The artist nearly was, though not in Indonesia. While lugging back one of his machine-gun guitars from Yogyakarta last year, Kesminas was detained for five hours at Melbourne Airport. "You could say that I was asking for it, and I am," he says. "The project does straddle that fault line, and for me that's the interesting spot...