Dr HS Paul
NEW DELHI, June 23: Foundation for Aviation and Sustainable Tourism (FAST) organized a Webinar on the issues concerning Aviation Sector titled “New Initiatives to Rejuvenate Aviation”, here.
Lt General (Retd) KM Seth, President, FAST and former Governor Tripura and Chhattisgarh States, VP Agrawal, Former Chairman, AAI and Vice President, FAST, V Somasundram, Former Member (ANS), AAI and Dr RK Tyagi, Former Chairman, HAL and Pawan Hans and Presently the Independent Director, Air India Limited were the key speakers while Inderjit Singh, ICAO Airport Consultant and Former Airport Director, IGIA moderated the Webinar.
While addressing the attendees in the webinar, VP Agrawal suggested that in order to avoid the monopoly situation, AAI might consider restrict allotting 2 airports to one bidder only. He suggested roping in State Governments and form of Joint Ventures for effectively implementing the 3rd phase of Airport Development Program especially for Greenfield airports, as Private Sector may not be able to take up program particularly in the post pandemic scenario.
V Somasundram emphasized the need to regain the confidence of air travelers and its main stake holder i.e. passengers through collective efforts required to be made to achieve not only revival of the sector but also achieve robust growth in the aviation sector.
Dr RK Tyagi in his address said that at present a lot of opportunities exist in the Aviation sector to develop India as a MRO Hub. He highlighted that for becoming Aviation Hub under the umbrella of “AtmaNirbhar Abhiyan” of Government will be the right strategy.
In his opening remarks, Lt General (Retd) KM Seth opined that COVID-19 has seriously affected the aviation sector and in the present environment, AAI need to revisit the role for them self and aggressively work towards achieving the new goal for planning and implementing the development agenda of the Aviation sector in India.
Inderjit Singh hoped that with the combined efforts of all the stakeholders and agencies and the Government support the aviation sector will be fully recovered.
GS Bawa, Former GM (PR), Airports Authority of India, coordinated the proceedings of the webinar as the host.