Breaking point

While there are numerous plans for airport expansion, new runways and new facilities, the truth is that completion of most of it is years away.

Airport master plans and investment in new infrastructure is lagging way behind traffic growth and the gap is getting wider.

The result is a huge headache for airline operations and one that is costing them heaps of money. For example, in the first half of this year 30 per cent of all flights operated to and from China by Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways and its subsidiary Dragonair suffered delays because of congestion in the air and on the ground.

More and more airports are reaching, or have already passed, their breaking point.

That is no exaggeration. In November the Airline Operators Committee (AOC), a coalition of 86 international airlines and 26 aviation service providers operating at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, called on authorities to impose an immediate ban on any new flights.

“Authorities should come to their senses and realise Suvarnabhumi can no longer accommodate more flights beyond the current level…better slot management, double aircraft parking – you name it, they’ve done it,” complained AOC chairman Louis Moser.

A relatively new airport, Suvarnabhumi was designed to handle 45 million passengers annually. In fiscal 2015, ended September 30, it handled 52. 4 million, 12. 7 percent more than the previous year. That’s expected to grow 9. 7 per cent this year to 70. 9 million. Airport expansion is planned but it won’t be ready for more than five years.

Indonesia’s main hub, Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta is another prime example. More and more airports are reaching, or have already passed, their breaking point. Designed to handle 22 million passengers a year it is, amazingly, already coping with more than 65 million, a figure expected to rise to 80 million by 2020. Yet development of the airport, expected to be completed in 2017, will only take its official capacity to 62 million.

It is a matter of too little, too late and authorities have already been forced to take some action. Muzaffar Ismail, director for aircraft operations at the country’s transport ministry, announced in November that Indonesia is cutting the number of flights allowed per hour from Soekarno-Hatta Airport due to safety concerns. He said to help ease the workload on air traffic controllers, traffic will be limited to 62 takeoffs and landings an hour, down from around 72 at peak hours currently.

“With the high frequency of flights, there is a greater risk of collisions and accidents,” Ismail said.

Indonesia and Thailand are far from being alone. While there are examples of good airport planning and timely development such as Singapore Changi and Kuala Lumpur International, nearly everywhere else across the region, from India to China, Japan to the Philippines and Vietnam, choked airports and overcrowded airways are the story of the day.

Airlines and their representative bodies such as IATA and the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines argue it’s up to governments and airport authorities to realise just how important air transport is to their economies and pick up their game by fast-tracking infrastructure development. The alternative is that all these new jets flying within, to and from the region will find it increasingly difficult to find a place to land and park.

One thing is certain: when the slot negotiators gather again for their next biannual meeting (in Hamburg, Germany, next June) they’ll have an even harder task meeting everyone’s demands for slots at Asia’s drowning airports.