Greenfield and second airports
In many parts of the world, investments in airports are as likely in greenfield and second airports as they are in established airports. For handlers, such new building will tend to offer more chance of establishing a presence than an expanding existing operation where there are likely to be entrenched operators.
The growing demand for a greater number of airports in Indonesia reflects what industry observers are describing as one of the world’s the fastest growing markets for air travel and the fifth largest domestic air travel market.
The popularity of air travel in Indonesia, not least the growing demands for air travel to replace ferry transport between the country’s many islands, is leading to a crisis in the state’s aging airport infrastructure. This made the headlines this year when In August, Garuda was forced to announce a six months delay in the launch of its first Jakarta-London service to May 2014 because of the capital’s aging airport.
A multi-billion dollar Abu Dhabi Airport terminal is to open in July 2017, to boost the capacity of the airport to 30 million passengers annually. Singapore’s sprawling Changi Airport is set to get much bigger with the opening of a new T5 terminal built to handle as many as 50 million passengers per year. The city-state’s transport minister Lui Tuck Yew has confirmed plans for the new super-sized T5 facility, although the terminal won’t open until sometime in the next decade.
In India, there are some 14 greenfield airports which have received in-principle green lights, including a major facility to be developed at Punefor and Nalanda in Bihar. A projected trebling of traffic is persuading the Indian government to invest US$30 billion in infrastructure over the next ten years in the upgrading of existing airports, the provision of second airports for major conurbations and greenfield airports. The government also intends to invest some US$10 billion in ancillary services such as ground handling, maintenance, air traffic management, security and training.
Projected growth for the country will necessitate provisioning for a second airport at each of the 12 metropolitan cities and a third in the case of Mumbai, paving the way for a total of 13 metro airports. There is the possibility of a second airport in Ahmedabad as well.