Indian government draws up new civil aviation roadmap to 2040

India's government has issued a 20-year roadmap for civil aviation growth that projects a sixfold increase in the country's passenger numbers, to 1.1b by 2040, and a quadrupling in the commercial airline fleet over the same span, to 2,400 aircraft. The "Vision 2040" roadmap, released on 15 January at an industry conference, also forecasts that the number of airports will increase from 99 in March 2018 to around 190-200. India's top 31 cities by population are foreseen having at least two airports each, with Delhi and Mumbai having three each. The incremental land requirement is estimated at 150,000 acres, and the capital investment at $40-50b. To support the growth of infrastructure, the government may consider establishing a $2b fund to support low-traffic airports in their initial operating phases. Land pooling is being considered to keep land acquisition costs low and provide landowners with high-value developed plots in the vicinity of the airports. Meanwhile, the government sees air cargo throughput quadrupling to 17m tons, with cargo processed paperlessly and at higher speed. New Delhi expects the country's freighter fleet "to expand multifold with the growth in e-commerce", as it seeks to make India a transshipment hub for South Asia.<br/>