India’s development plans and projects are being led by politics of appeasement and gratefulness rather than strong economic logic. A report on some ghost airports in the country indicates that certain airports built since the year 2009 have been constructed merely to please certain powerful regional bosses. The report states that across India, more than half of the 100-odd domestic airports operated by Airport Authority of India have not seen a scheduled flight this year. That’s over 50 airports without any business. This should be wakeup call for the Goa government and reason enough for the State to revisit its plans on the Mopa airport.
As a first measure, the State government would do well to immediately press the pause button on the Mopa airport and undertake a fresh study of the economic viability of the project before taking any further steps towards its construction. The financial future of an airport depends on the number of flights that will land and takeoff from the airport and the experience the country has had with some newly-constructed airports taking the form of ghost terminals indicates that the projects were undertaken without a proper project report and economic viability study.
It’s rather simple economics and easy to understand that airlines will fly into an airport or to a destination if there is passenger demand. No airline in the world will fly to an airport just because it is there. The government can’t be so naïve as to believe that just because it has built a modern and plush airport at Mopa, airlines will begin to fly into the airport. This can be borne out by the fact that since 2009, there have been eight airports built that are yet to see any air traffic. Airlines have stopped flying to destinations due to reduced demand. For an airline company the bottom line is profitability and so it will service only those destinations that will bring it profits it seeks. With such a background, there is absolutely no guarantee that the Mopa airport won’t go the way of these airports.
For illustrative purposes, take the airport terminal at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan that was constructed in March 2013 but till today has not had a single commercial flight landing here. The airport was built keeping in mind that the desert town is a popular tourist destination and an airport would further boost tourism to the city and the region. Tourism has not seen the expected surge simply because the airport is yet to see any commercial traffic. Jaislamer’s tourism, like Goa’s, is seasonal.
India is not the only country in the world to have ghost airports. Spain has them and so does China. The latter country has even entire ghost towns – fully built towns and cities that are awaiting residents for years. Ironically, just last month Spain auctioned off the airport at Ciudad to a Chinese consortium. The airport was meant to be an alternative to Madrid’s Barajas airport, but went bust in 2010 after opening in 2008. Another airport at Castellon that was built in 2011 received first flights this year and is only now seeing a few flights landing.
The Mopa airport construction is turning almost into an ego issue, with the government adamant about going ahead with the airport despite the opposition to it and the rather weak reports about its economic viability. Though the project reports show an expected increase in travellers over the years justifying its construction, the question that has remained unanswered till today is where from are these travelers coming and what are they coming for?
We are still to learn how the government intends to keep Mopa from falling into the red. Goa is neither a hub nor a transit point, nor does it have the infrastructure to match the increased volumes of passenger traffic that will be required to make Mopa economically viable. A few stray projects, all of which are facing opposition, will not be able to keep Mopa airport afloat. The Mopa airport project may require only than political will to make it a reality, but to make it viable it requires plain and simple economics. And that, given the ghost airports of India, is now an even darker cloud casting its shadow over the project.
