Dabolim Airport
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| Dabolim Airport Goa Airport Dabolim Navy Airbase |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| IATA: GOI - ICAO: VAGO | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Military/Public | ||
| Operator | Airports Authority of India Indian Navy |
||
| Serves | Vasco da Gama, Goa | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 184 ft (56 m) | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| ft | m | ||
| 08/26 | 11,345 | 3,458 | Asphalt |
Dabolim Airport (IATA: GOI, ICAO: VAGO) is located in Goa, India and is the only domestic and international airport in the state. It is a civil airport that is also used for military aviation purposes. Such combinations are usually problematic. The best known exponent is Honolulu International Airport/Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.
[edit] History
The airport was built by the Portuguese authorities in the 1950s. Until 1961 it served as the main hub for the local airline Transportes Aereos da India Portuguesa[1], which on a regular schedule served Karachi, Mozambique and Timor and other destinations. After December 1961, it was occupied by the Indian Navy's air wing. The Lieutenant governor of the former Union Territory of Goa, Lieutenant General K.P. Candeth, who had led the successful invasion of Goa, "handed over" the airport to the Indian Navy in early 1962.
The earliest (i.e. non-Portuguese) international tourists to Goa may have been the flower children (hippies) of the 1960s who used the overland route, by road or rail, from Bombay (now Mumbai) -- detouring via Poona (now Pune), to north Goa's beaches, a trip taking 24 hours then and at least 12 hours now (vs a mere 1 hour of plane travel). A sea route was also available. For civilian air travel out of Vasco da Gama and Goa the Indian Navy and the Government of India invited the public sector airline (known now as Indian) to operate at Dabolim from 1966 after the bombed out runway was repaired and jet-enabled.
Once two vital road bridges across the main waterways of Goa were built by the early 1980s and Goa hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 1983, the charter flight business began to take off a few years later, pioneered by Condor of Germany. Goa's estimated 700 flights per year account for some 90% of the country's international charter tourist flights. However, beyond this, details of Goa's charter flights, such as number of airlines and destinations, is not known. As the free weekend morning hours approach saturation by chartered flights, attention is shifting to the early morning hours of weekdays for accommodating such flights.
[edit] Structure
The airport is spread over 688 ha (1700 acres) and consists of a "civil enclave" of nearly 14 ha (35 acres), an increase from its original size of 6 ha (15 acres). The terminal building operated by the public sector Airports Authority of India (AAI) is a basic Public Works Department (PWD), brick and mortar structure with a total floor space of 12,000 sqm. Of this, a Domestic terminal comprises 2000 sqm and there is an International terminal of a little over 1000 sqm. The remaining space is for other service areas. The domestic terminal is designed to process 350 arrivals and departures simultaneously, while the international terminal is meant for 250. There are 250 paramilitary personnel stationed at the airport for security purposes. There is provision for parking 84 cars and 8 buses. The airport has a CAT-I ILS but the ATC tower is inconspicuous.
A peculiarity of the airport lies in the concentration of 80% of civilian traffic in the period between 1:00 pm and 6:00 pm during weekdays, with the balance in the early morning hours. This is because of naval restrictions for military flight training purposes.
[edit] Military flight training
For purposes of the flight training at Dabolim, the Indian Navy's flagship, INS Viraat, an aircraft carrier, has been based at Mumbai (700 km (435 mi) north) even though the Navy has a big base in the nearby city of Vasco da Gama. The flight training at Dabolim is carried out on 4 days of the week for 4.5 hours in the morning and for another hour in the evening, during which hours civilian flights cannot operate. Charter airlines carrying international tourists during the season tend to use the freer civil aviation regimes on weekends (Friday through Sunday) as mentioned earlier. These average 10 per day currently. Parking bays can accommodate two (or three) wide-bodies at a time, the equivalent of about 6 narrow-bodies.
[edit] International flights
Dabolim's scheduled international flights are sporadic. These are operated only to the Persian Gulf region by the two state owned carriers (Air India and Indian) who have been granted a duopoly of this sector for a few more years. Foreign carriers were disallowed from operating scheduled flights to/from Goa. But now some carriers have obtained permission to operate such scheduled services. SriLankan Airlines operates A320s twice a week, on Saturdays and Mondays, arriving at 7:30 am and departing at 8:30 am.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has announced a relaxation in charter flight policy whereby Indians residing abroad can also use charter flights, and all charter flight passengers (Indian and foreign) can stay in India for longer periods. This is expected to benefit non-resident Goans travelling on a 'visiting friends and relatives' (VFR) basis.
[edit] Navy mans ATC, earns revenues
Another peculiarity of the airport is that its Air traffic control (ATC)is in the hands of the Indian Navy which earns revenues from this service of at least Rs 700 million a year. It is not known if any fines are levied on airlines which over-shoot the curfew. With 13 thousand aircraft movements notched up in 2004-05 at a 5-year compound annual growth rate of over 10%, this income works out to Rs 50,000 fees per operation, at the rate of every 10 minutes during the busy period of the day. Dabolim is 7th or 8th in Indian airport rankings and slipping slowly. However, like 120 other airports in the country it lacks an operating licence from the Director General of Civil Aviation and will have to apply for one soon.
Capital expenditures (such as for runway expansion etc) at the airport are covered by the Airports Authority of India which is consequently asking for an equitable sharing of the navigation and landing charges. The Dabolim airport runway has increased in length over the years from about 1,829 m (6,000 ft) initially and can now accommodate Boeing 747s. This underlines another peculiarity of Dabolim airport: its runway is not at all space constrained but the space for ancillary functions (such as terminals, aprons, parking bays etc) is, that too, severely. There is a shortage of night parking bays which are at a premium in metro airports like Mumbai. A prominent local association has estimated that about 100 acres is needed for the civil enclave as against the nearly 35 acres provided at present.
One consequence of the lop-sided government accounting policies is that neither the Navy nor the AAI seem to have much incentive for keeping the general public in Goa updated regularly about civil aviation activity levels at Dabolim airport for planning and development purposes. Similarly, Dabolim airport's met department provides data on weather patterns (including storms which are prevalent in this area in the summer) either to the Navy or to the central met office in Delhi. Things are complicated at Dabolim airport because the Navy marches to the beat of a different drum and the AAI is generally behind the times in its aviation mind-set.
[edit] Campaign to revert to civilian status
There has been a demand in local political circles for the restoration of Dabolim's civilian status and that the Indian Navy should abandon Dabolim, possibly shifting to an airfield in the new INS Kadamba naval base at Karwar, 70 km (43 mi) south of Dabolim. However, the Indian Navy's top officers in Goa have hinted that the investment at Dabolim naval air station is huge and that it would be impossible to replicate this (overnight) at Karwar. However, to a transiting passenger, there are almost no outward signs of any military presence at the airport. Satellite images (see infobox) are also fairly unremarkable in this regard.
[edit] Congestion quotient
The airport congestion quotient can be considered as the ratio of actual traffic to the rated capacity. The rated capacity of Dabolim airport is not public knowledge. As an approximation one can use the rated capacity of Bangalore HAL airport, a civil enclave like Dabolim, which is 6 million passengers per annum (mppa).
But this has to be adjusted for "no fly" times imposed by the Navy. There is a high probability that this is from 8:30 am to 1:00 pm (4.5 hours) on weekdays. There is some uncertainty about whether this applies to Fridays too. Giving the military the benefit of the doubt and taking Friday as a "free" day results in the deduction of 18 hours per week. The available hours thus become 150 per week.
Next we have to eliminate the night operating hours which are only theoretical and not practical at present. The problem here is that on weekdays the airport supposedly opens at 6:00 am and closes at 6:00 pm. But on weekends it opens at 4:00 am and closes at 6:00 pm. If the airport can function at 4:00 am on some days then perhaps it can function at 4:00 am on other days too. There is also a question whether the airport actually closes to civilian traffic at 6:00 pm. Taking a more liberal closing time of 7:00 pm, the non-operating night hours of 7:00 pm to 4:00 am add up to a total of 9 hours per day, 7 days a week. This amounts to 63 hours, reducing available time to 87 hours. This works out to 52 per cent of the raw rated capacity of 6 mppa giving a corresponding adjusted capacity of 3.1 mppa.
Data on the actual traffic at Dabolim is subject to some uncertainty. Official figures for the fiscal year ending early 2006 put the actual mppa at 2.2. It appears that from an average of about 800,000 passengers a year between 1999 and 2001, the total has risen to an estimated 2.2 million in FY05. This gives a per capita rate of 1.6 for Goa. It represents a compound annual growth rate of about 20% over 5 years (2000-2005) versus about 25% on an All-India basis indicating a slight slippage in relative terms.
The month-on-month growth for April in 2005-06 alone was over 100%. Most of the traffic in the 2005-06 period (77%) was from domestic passengers, the balance being accounted for by international travellers numbering about 320,000 in the last "season". 2.2 mppa thus represents 71 per cent of the practical capacity. Not too bad from a passenger standpoint.
Unofficial numbers, however, put the 2006 H1 figure at a level of 2.92 mppa. (at the reported average rate of 8000 per day from an average of 56 daily flights). This represents a per capita rate of nearly 2.1 and reflects a 32% increase over our earlier estimate of 2.2 million and may have caused the airport to reach saturation levels on an adjusted basis. This works out to a near saturation point of 94 per cent. Only Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore may be worse than this during Dabolim's limited operating hours. However, with the 50% rate of growth reportedly experienced in India in H12006, Dabolim traffic growth still lags the all-India rate.
Thus the evidence presented points in two key directions: 1) unprecedented traffic growth leading to saturation of available capacity and acute congestion in the passenger terminal and 2) the steady loss of airport ranking due to less stringent slot control regimes in other civil enclaves like Begumpet, Hyderabad. This assumes that current industry trends will persist. Pervasive losses in the industry (due to stiff competition, high fuel prices and severe infrastructure bottlenecks) have, however, clouded the picture significantly.
[edit] Indian Navy's role
The early history of military flight training at Dabolim is obscure. It may have migrated from Cochin naval air station and/or a Coimbatore base. But in 1983, the Indian Navy began inducting the small and aerodynamically complicated Sea Harrier into service, basing training activities there. Now the base is expected to house four MIG-29KUBs (two seater trainers) which will be inducted into the navy with a complement of 12 single seater MIG-29Ks purchased with the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. Since MIG-29Ks are untried and untested anywhere in the operational context, a new round of flight training will begin in about a couple of years for the new planes.
Reportedly, a mock-up of the 700 m deck is being built at Dabolim airport for training purposes as the aircraft carrier is slated to be based at Karwar. Meanwhile the maintenance, repair and overhaul of the INS Viraat's Sea Harriers (whose numbers have declined steadily due to crashes)is located at the naval air station in Kochi, 700 km (435 mi) south.
Besides military flight training involving the Indian Navy's V/STOVL aircraft such as helicopters and Sea Harriers, Dabolim airport also hosts exercises by the Indian Air Force's fighter bombers and is a base for the Indian Coast Guard (which operates a fleet of small aircraft). The beaches on Goa's 105 km coast line are vulnerable to oil spills from the heavy tanker traffic in the Arabian Sea and capsizing of vessels engaged in coastal shipping as well as illegal discharge of dirty water from both. The Indian Navy even carries out long range maritime patrols as far as the Horn of Africa from Dabolim using unarmed aircraft such as IL-38s.
Of late the Navy has begun displaying its "crack" (3-plane) aerobatic team, brought in to Dabolim from an unnamed location, on special public events in Goa, a couple of times a year, for flypasts of 15-20 minutes duration, to keep the locals and tourists in good humour. This is in addition to "in-house" events.
The Government of India has announced the selection of the next Navy chief, an appointment which will take effect on Nov 1, 2006. The officer has had a long association with Dabolim naval air station and a staunch proponent of its continuation in perpetuity. He told a local paper that he "was looking forward to major challenges ahead, one of which was to strengthen the naval base in the state" which he believed had grown into a "major" one. "We will add a lot of aviation elements into the Navy in Goa", he is said to have remarked.
[edit] Cross winds
In the civilian domain, Dabolim's future could be shaped by a combination of the following precedents. A trio of precedents involving civil enclaves includes one from Kochi which dates back to the mid-90s, while the other two, from Bangalore and Hyderabad, are more recent. Here it was decided that the civil enclave would close once greenfield airports came up nearby usually at a distance of about 30 km (19 mi). Cochin International Airport is up and running while HAL Bangalore International Airport and Hyderabad International Airport, also under public-private partnerships (PPPs), are in advanced stages of construction.
According to this line of thinking, a greenfield location was proposed practically on the northern border of the state at a place called Mopa, 50 km (31 mi), as the crow flies, from Dabolim. Shortly afterwards, (in March 2000), the Civil Aviation Ministry secured Cabinet approval to a resolution to close Dabolim's civil enclave. In 2005, a study done under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) proposed a futuristic airport at Mopa. It did not take any Dabolim traffic projections into account. This however raised the hackles of a section of people in Goa whose slogan was "Dabolim forever, Mopa never". Their opposition has led to an attempt by the Prime Minister to create a consensus for Mopa through a small committee of a few state leaders and others. Its decision is awaited. The Prime Minister has expressed concern about minimising socio-economic disruption in the name of development. He has also, single-handedly, revoked a problematic Cabinet decision. These are key elements in the Mopa issue too.
The other set of precedents is potentially just as salient. They include the very recent decisions to privatise the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and Indira Gandhi International Airport for urgent modernisation purposes. In these two cases there is no requirement to close the existing airports when second airports are built soon to relieve acute congestion. However, there is a provision to give the new incumbents the right of first refusal to match the highest bidders for the second airports.
A third set of precedents is found in the international realm. Even when the civil enclaves are closed to general commercial traffic at Bangalore and Hyderabad, they will be open for top government functionaries travelling in government passenger aircraft, business maharajas flying private business jets and hotel helicopters for ferrying celebrity guests. This seems to be the practice at an Royal Air Force (RAF) base near London, and is being proposed for Bangkok's old Don Mueang International Airport where even charters may be allowed. One pointer in this direction at Dabolim is the decision to declare car parking within the airport gates as "reserved for VIPs". All other vehicles have to make use of space being made outside the gates.
Last, but by no means least, there is the significant precedent of the hiving-off of the Mumbai airfield from Defence units to public sector agencies in the 1950s, and eventually to the Airports Authority of India, enabling it to grow into the country's busiest airport serving as an international gateway to the financial hub. But the integrity of the operational area may have been substantially eroded over the decades due to a combination of negligence and population pressures.
In fact the airport authority assumed in the 1970s that the airfield in the adjacent area of Juhu would not be needed and allowed the municipal corporation to make use of some peripheral areas. Thirty years later the airport authority is trying to retrieve some of the lost land here as well. Such problems in its own context may be what the Navy is trying to prevent at Dabolim by resisting demands for airport land. However, this should not preclude adjustment to military flight training regimes at Dabolim. If this could relocate once it could relocate again.
[edit] Upgrade of Dabolim
In this situation, the Indian Civil Aviation Ministry has announced a plan to upgrade Dabolim airport. This will involve construction of a new international passenger terminal (after converting the existing one to domestic) and adding several more aircraft stands over an area of about 4 ha (9 acres), so called air-side work, a specialty of AAI. A recent estimate places the upgrade plan at about Rs 600-700 million. The upgrade is, however, clubbed with similar exercises for over 30 other "non-metros" and is scheduled to begin only in 2007. It may be delayed in Dabolim's case as no PPP possibility is envisaged for city-side development.
[edit] Surface transport connectivity
Although the roads are fairly good, Dabolim airport is poorly connected by public transport. Passengers usually use taxis to reach the airport. Public buses, which tend to be over-crowded, go to the nearby city of Vasco da Gama, approximately 4 km (2 mi) away, and also stop at the closer Chicalim bus stop, about 1.5 km (1 mi) from the airport. Local mini-buses connect both Vasco da Gama and Chicalim to the airport. Pre-paid taxis are available from the airport, but these tend to be higher-priced than in the rest of India. Charter groups (operators as well as tourists) are currently facing the prospect of the former having to add to their mini-coach fleets or the latter having to detour for a total of two hours due to restrictions on heavy vehicle traffic on the bridge on the river Zuari which has developed cracks. The government is mulling the need for a second bridge. Meanwhile plans for a 6-lane, north-south expressway are moving ahead in Goa. A nonorail system is also being considered. All these plans have implications for the proposed Mopa airport and its link to Dabolim and Goa's population centres.
Railway tracks of the Indian Railways (not the Konkan Railway, which also run through Goa, pass in front of the airport. The nearest station is at Vasco da Gama city. The port at Mormugao, which is showing signs of having a growing interest in luxury liners arriving there, is located about 5 km (3 mi) away.
Konkan Railways is spreading the focus of arrivals and departures to Margao (Madgaon) in South Goa, Thivim or Tivim in North Goa, and Karmali near the state-capital of Panaji on one side and the industrial centre of Ponda on the other. Only Madgaon is a major population centre in its own right on this route, the others being remote access points for them. However, nearby Vasco da Gama continues to be an important station for the state's passengers travelling to Bangalore, and other destinations in South India on Indian Railways.
[edit] Local associations speak out
During 2006, the Hotel Assocation of South Goa (HASG) and the Goa Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI) published their views on the aviation scene in Goa. A gist of these two perspectives is provided below for introductory purposes.
HASG:
Contribution: Stark choice posed between Dabolim and Mopa, a zero-sum game. Stresses that Dabolim is a naval air base and not an air force base.
Downer: A parochial, hoteliers' outlook and a foreign tourist-centric one at that.
Vision: "Stop Mopa"; keep Dabolim going for 10-13 years with quick-fixes suggested. Downplays traffic growth trends and potential.
Dark side: Potential for sowing dissension between north and south
GCCI:
Contribution: Overview of technical potential of Mopa and economic potential of cargo traffic neglected by Dabolim. Observes that the navy uses Dabolim airport for training and air traffic control.
Downer: No follow through on Mopa's potential for low cost domestic aviation from large catchment area identified (see below) which is equivalent in size to the population of Mumbai; traffic growth trends and potentials understated significantly vis a vis other sources.
Vision: Mopa as a tri-state (Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra) airport evolving into an A380 category global hub.
Dark side: Dabolim is dispensable after 7-8 years; recommends a few quick fixes for this duration.
[edit] International parallels
Hawaii's Honolulu International Airport and Hickam Air Force Base operate as a single, integrated unit, sharing multiple runways including two for sea planes.
San Diego's Lindbergh Field, a civilian airport, experiences some of the constraints found at Dabolim. Casting about for ways to expand air travel in future, the regional airport authority proposed that joint use of a military facility, the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, used primarily for carrier based fighter jet training, should be considered as a substitute for Lindbergh Field. But this was voted down as people felt it would send a wrong signal to the military. Meanwhile Indian Navy fliers at Dabolim were well acquainted with the hit film "Top Gun" shot on location at MCAS, Miramar.
Geographically Singapore is compact as Goa is, in fact much more so. Its total area of nearly 700 sqkm is 3000 sqkm less than Goa's. Yet it manages to accommodate a total of 9 civilian airports and military air bases, including world famous Changi airport. (See Transport in Singapore). This experience should be relevant not only for Goa but also for Indian aviation as a whole where the needs of the two separate arms have to be reconciled for security and development purposes.
Other airports where there has been a play of "old vs new" include:
1. Hong Kong International Airport and its associated surface transport links which emerged more or less on target and resulted in the closure of the close-in Kai Tak Airport.
2. Montreal Mirabel International Airport, a mega-project, which took the opposite turn and ended up as a white elephant while Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport continued to provide useful service.
3. Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport where it is still "early days" as far as co-existence with Don Mueang International Airport is concerned.
4. Berlin's multi-airport system (Berlin Brandenburg International Airport, Berlin Schonefeld Airport and Berlin Tegel International Airport) which is largely a creature of historical political compulsions is now being consolidated and the results will be available in a few years.
5. The saga of Dallas Love Field, where Southwest Airlines held out when Dallas Fort Worth International Airport was built and spawned the low cost carrier paradigm in aviation.
[edit] Recent accidents
1. December 2004. Sea Harrier did a "belly flop" while landing. Pilot survived.
2. Early 2005. Sea Harrier overshot the runway while landing. Pilot survived.
3. December 2005. Sea Harrier crashed through a steel wire barrier, broke through the perimeter wall, flew over a road before ending in a fire-ball on the other side. Pilot died.
4. In mid-2006 there were a couple of instances of passenger jets having to be grounded at Dabolim airport for repairs after suffering bird hits. This has been ascribed to inadequate garbage disposal either by the AAI or the Navy or both. No casualties were involved.
[edit] References
1. GCCI (undated, circa 2005/06). Goa Agenda: Goa Infrastructure Report. Panjim, Goa: Goa Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
2. HASG (2006). Series of three infomercials titled "Save Dabolim Save Goa" in Herald (Panjim), in March.
3. Unnithan, S. (2005). "Harrier Hassles", India Today, Dec. 19, p.54.
[edit] Airlines and destinations
- Air Deccan (Bangalore, Dehli, Hyderabad, Mumbai)
- Air India (Dubai, Kuwait, Mumbai)
- Air Sahara (Delhi, Mumbai)
- Condor Airlines (Frankfurt, Munich)
- GoAir (Mumbai)
- Indian (Bangalore, Calicut, Chennai, Delhi, Kochi, Kuwait, Mumbai)
- Jet Airways (Bangalore, Mumbai)
- Kingfisher Airlines (Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai)
- SpiceJet (Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad)
- SriLankan Airlines (Colombo)
- Tiger Airways (Singapore, from 2007)
- Transaero (Moscow, St.Petersburg and onward to Europe and Canada)
Charter airlines such as Excel Airways and Monarch Airlines operate into Goa on a seasonal basis. Charter flights are available to and from UK and European destinations, as well as Israel and Russia.
[edit] External links
- World Aero Data airport information for VAGO
- Dabolim Airport at Goa Central
