How India plans to do a Dubai or Doha in Delhi: The plan for hub-and-spoke desi airports kicks of

NEW DELHI: India is finalising its hub-and-spoke policy of flying passengers between small towns and rest of the world via hub like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The move comes amid Air India and IndiGo’s massive orders for wide body aircraft; the coming of age of Indian hub airports that are gearing up for domestic-to-international and vice-versa transfers; and the biggest hubs of international travel to and from India in the Gulf like Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha facing uncertainty over when the resume pre Feb 28 operations. Union aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu visited and secretary Samir Sinha visited the upcoming hub at Delhi’s IGI Airport — India’s busiest airport — on Thursday to fine-tune the policy and begin its implementation in right earnest.

Sinha is tackling what is the biggest pain point for international to domestic passengers — they need to collect their baggage on the port of arrival in India; clear customs and then then check-in again for the domestic connecting flight. “baggage for both inbound and outbound international passengers will be transferred seamlessly through airside operations at the hub airport, eliminating the need for passenger intervention,” the aviation ministry says about the change under the new hub-and-spoke policy.

Passengers flying out of India, say from Lucknow to Delhi to London, on the other hand, can through check-in their bag at Lucknow itself if both their flights are on the same airline or alliance’ code share partner carriers.

The operating procedure for domestic to international transfers:

“Under the hub-and-spoke model, passengers arriving from various smaller cities will be consolidated in a coordinated manner and routed through major hub airports such as Delhi for onward international connections. At the spoke (smaller origin) airport, passengers will be issued two separate boarding passes, clearly marked with ‘D’ (domestic) and ‘I’ (international) indicators,” the aviation ministry said in a statement.

“Customs and immigration formalities for outbound passengers will be completed at the first point of exit from the country, which will be the spoke airport, and passengers on such outbound journeys will not have access to customs declaration facilities during transit,” it said.

The operating procedure for international to domestic transfers:

“For inbound passengers, customs and immigration processes will take place at the final point of entry into the country, which will again be the spoke airport…. baggage for both inbound and outbound international passengers will be transferred seamlessly through airside operations at the hub airport, eliminating the need for passenger intervention. In order to maintain operational efficiency and regulatory clarity, combination flights will not be permitted, and separate aircraft will be deployed for the domestic and international segments of hub-and-spoke operations,” it said.

Naidu said India is aiming to enable seamless connectivity between Tier-II and Tier-III airports and international destinations. “While passengers will benefit from reduced travel time, there will also be optimal utilisation of infrastructure already developed across the country,” he said.

The hub and spoke strategy aims to alter India from being a source market of traffic for feeding foreign airlines and hubs, to a “global transit hub, thereby allowing Indian airports to capture a substantial share of transfer traffic that is currently routed through foreign hubs.”

Naidu said: “At present, nearly 35% of international passengers travelling from India transit through foreign hubs such as Dubai, London and Singapore. Our aim is to reverse this trend by developing globally competitive Indian hubs like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai.”

“Delhi Airport (for instance) stands out with its capacity exceeding 10 crore passengers annually, handling nearly 50% of the total passenger traffic in the northern region and managing around 50,000 daily transfers, thereby positioning itself as a natural hub airport,” the minster said.

The implementation of this hub-and-spoke model “will also enable airlines to deploy their aircraft more efficiently for international operations, while contributing to decongestion at major airports by decentralising customs and immigration processes to spoke locations,” Naidu said.

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