Shocking: India grapples with acute dearth of air-traffic controllers
FollowThe Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) in New Delhi is all set to get a new air traffic control tower, at an estimated cost of ₹350 crore. However, there is one major hiccup - India’s aviation market is grappling with an acute dearth of air-traffic controllers.
According to a Bloomberg report, IGI, which is India's busiest airport, needs 600 technicians ideally for stable operations. But it employs only 360. The report revealed that India is facing a major shortage in finding air-traffic controllers, as many shun employment at the state-run Airports Authority of India due to low salaries. They instead opt for higher paying jobs with private airlines.
The situation is bound to snowball into a major crisis as in the coming months a slew of budget carriers plan to add hundreds of aircraft to cater to India's travel boom. What is more startling is the fact that about a third of India’s planned air-traffic controller positions are vacant, the government said last year.
“It is a huge safety hazard,” Mohan Ranganathan, a former commercial pilot and an independent aviation safety consultant based in Chennai, told Bloomberg. “The air-traffic controllers are being flogged in violation of fatigue rules.”
The new air-traffic control tower at IGI will have 22 storeys. It will have 21 controller positions in its visual control room and 12 ground controller positions at the operational level.
Earlier the authorities at the Delhi airport had said that the government plans to call in staff from other cities and will rope in senior officials as well to operate both old and new tower at the IGI.
But so far, the dangerous situation appears unchanged.
