Comment
Approaching crisis point?
October 1st 2015
The fact that 30% of flights into China operated by Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragonair were delayed in the first half of this year is no news to anyone in the industry. China is a red hot congestion spot that is showing no signs of cooling in the immediate future. Read More »
But it is not the only country in the region with choked airports and airline fleets flying in confined skies. Gateways including Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok and Hanoi are operating far beyond their design capacity.
As a result, carriers are losing millions of dollars a year because they are forced to fly holding patterns and run engines on taxiways while they wait for gates to clear.
And then there are the passengers and the crews. Passengers are entitled to be annoyed when they have to sit in packed planes for hours - a common experience in China - and then often miss their onward flights because of delays.
It isn’t fair either that cockpit and cabin crews and operations staff have to suffer the complaints, often abusive, of passengers outraged by delays. Or to have to constantly manage changing operating schedules.
So what to do? The present congested state of airport and air traffic management has developed because the infrastructure master plans of many Asia-Pacific governments and airport authorities have failed to keep up with demand.
There are exceptions. Singapore Changi and Kuala Lumpur are facilities that have met the challenge of servicing the world’s fastest growing aviation market. However, the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) drive to have “Seamless Skies” implemented in the Asia-Pacific has been disappointing. Designed to improve air traffic flow along airways using cross-border flow management, its success is “patchy” and in some cases “very slow”.
Some countries have upgraded their air traffic systems, others have not. It results, IATA said, in everyone having to operate at the lowest common denominator, which does very little to relieve the increasing air traffic congestion that costs airlines so much time and money.
Governments understand the importance of aviation to their local economies, but many of them are backing away from the multi-billion dollar decisions required to build modern aviation infrastructure. They must step up to the plate and build facilities that will keep up with the demands that increasing numbers of jets are placing on the system.
Aviation is a complex industry built on partnerships. New airports alone will not eliminate congestion. There must be a dramatic improvement in air traffic management to accompany the onground hardware.
Unfortunately, the evidence to date suggests that this is not going to happen soon and that congestion in the Asia-Pacific is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
