London Gatwick and Chennai — The tale of two airports

London Gatwick and Chennai — The tale of two airports



A. Ranganathan

From the beginning of this century, Indian aviation has been projected to be shining. But the clear skies are often clouded with the darkness of inefficiency and corruption. Maybe, Indian aviation should learn from Albert Einstein’s famous saying: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning”

The airport expansion plans have been worked out by various committees, Parliament delegations, etc. Projections have been made by the Civil Aviation Ministry, the DGCA, Airports Authority of India, several aviation agencies and experts and the airlines too.

Learn from yesterday

Let us look at the last 25 years of the 20th century. What was the projected growth and what was the realised growth? We had a flood of airlines joining the fray and most of them, along with the poor trusting investors, bit the dust. Only three survived and one of them had the financial support of the government which doled out largesse from tax-payer’s money. Inefficiency was overlooked and corruption went into overdrive to sustain the system.

Live for today

We started this century with a lot of fanfare. Projections and comparisons with other growing nations were dished out. How can we let the Chinese dragon get ahead? We have to announce growth projections that humble the dragon. We have airlines announcing orders for hundreds of aircraft. Never mind if we don’t have the pilots to fly them. Never mind if we don’t have the engineers to maintain them. And never mind if we don’t have air traffic controllers to man the crucial system, on which safety in the air largely depends.

For Indian aviation to shine, a day has 48 hours and not 24 hours that an ordinary mortal is used to. We announce that our airports are congested and we need more airports, bigger airports and greener airports. We have to prove to the world that we are better than China and we can build better airports than Singapore. Are we anywhere near achieving these hopes?

To fill the over-capacity on an aeroplane, we sell tickets at well below sustainable levels. We fill up the skies with uneconomical flights and create chaos at airports, which cannot handle the traffic because of inefficiency and outdated procedures. And based on this overstated and over-estimated average, we build growth rate castles in the air.

Let us accept our limitations. In five years we could not create the infrastructure for new airports in two cities. And we have started talking about 500 airports! Let us run the current airports efficiently and to optimum levels. Blowing up public funds on Utopian projects is not the way to growth.

Hope for tomorrow

Take the case of what is happening to the new airports in Hyderabad and Bangalore. The bankruptcy of our system is exposed with those two projects. As long as this coalition dharma of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats runs the system, there is no hope. All the projects and all the money involved in executing them will go down the drain. And it is the hard-earned money of every taxpayer that is wasted by this incompetence.

We have the expertise in India but we choose to ignore the competent but promote the incompetent. Our current airports are quite capable of handling 50 movements an hour using efficient systems and procedures. If the projections indicate a growth beyond this figure from 2015, let us realise that we have seven more years to plan and execute the requirement. The important thing is to not stop questioning

Take the case of Chennai airport. Plans are made for expansion. It is announced that the traffic potential is so large that the airport needs a parallel runway, that the second runway has to be extended, displacing thousands of honest, tax-paying citizens. What is this exercise for, is the question that every taxpayer should ask.

Chennai airport handles 129,575 aircraft movements a year. This is based on the 355 movements per day that Airports Authority of India has given out. The airport is open for 24 hours of operation. There are just a few hours when the traffic peaks to around 28 movements in an hour.

The AAI has projected that, by 2015 there will be 50 movements in a year. For this grand increase, more than Rs 1,000 crore is to be spent to build the second runway, displacing a 1,000 families from their residences, paying a pittance as compensation and, in the process, filling several deep pockets.

Compare this with London Gatwick airport, which is similar to the Chennai airport in its layout. Gatwick has a single runway that is used just like Chennai’s. But the big difference is, Gatwick handled 266,550 aircraft movements in 2007. This is more than double the traffic that Chennai airport has and is more than the projected traffic for Chennai in 2015. Does Gatwick clamour for a second runway? Does it give excuses? How does it manage this large traffic flow? Simply because of ‘efficiency’ and ‘correct procedures’. The only difference between Chennai airport and Gatwick is the ‘Rapid Exit Taxiways”. Gatwick has a minimum of two rapid exit taxiways at either end of the runway.

These taxiways are angled at about 30-45 degrees from the runway alignment. This enables the aircraft to leave the runway, after landing, at a high speed of 50-55 knots. Chennai has the taxi exits at 90 degrees to the runway alignment. Because of this, planes have to slow down to exit the runways safely. This would mean a slightly longer runway occupancy time of around 15-20 seconds more for each flight.

Runway maintenance

Another factor is the quality of runway maintenance. The exit points on the runway at Gatwick are clear of rubber deposits and the maintenance procedures are as per ICAO requirements. The exit points of Chennai airport have heavy rubber deposits and we use outdated rubber removal procedures.

The air traffic flow is also different in London and in Indian airspace. ICAO requires a minimum of 1 minute separation between aircrafts. This will amount to about 4 nautical miles between aircrafts. In India, the ATC use more than 8 nautical miles. This slows down traffic enormously.

Moreover, the ATC uses the same distance separation, irrespective of the speed of the aircraft. You may have a turboprop aircraft coming for landing at Chennai at six miles. This would take a minimum of three minutes for landing. Yet, a jet aircraft waiting for take off will not be permitted to enter the runway and take off, even though it would take just one minute to be airborne. This over-cautiousness also results in slow traffic flow.

An efficient air traffic control system uses positive speed control to maintain this minimum separation. Aircraft are specified definite speeds to be maintained at different distances from the runway. They have to comply with this speed control. If an aircraft is found to be too fast or slow, the offending aircraft is alerted. If this disregard for speed control continues, the aircraft is taken out of sequence. Discipline has to be enforced.

Flooding

Chennai does not require the parallel runway nor does it need the expansion of the second runway. I wonder whether the geographical layout of the terrain was ever considered. At the intersection of the two runways, the elevation is around 15 metres.

At the threshold of Runway 12 (the beginning of the second runway) the elevation is just 9 metres. If this portion is extended across the Adyar river, the mid-point of the river is just 2 metres in elevation. Crossing over to the north, across the river, the elevation is close to 12 metres. Anyone with ‘Google Earth’ can see this clearly.

It doesn’t require rocket science to recognise that this cup-like formation is bound to suffer severe flooding during moderate to heavy rains. We saw what happened to the present airport when the sky opened up in November 2005. The authorities had to break portions of the airport compound wall to let out the flood waters which threatened the airport.

If the extension of the second runway is to be usable, they will have to spend crores of rupees to fill the entire central section to raise the level. This, in turn, will result in blocking the overflow of excess water from Chembarambakkam lake. Does anyone care about the hundreds of families who will be affected by this?

Let us remember what Mahatma Gandhi said: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”.

(The author, an airline pilot with 19,000 hours experience, specialises in accident prevention studies.)


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