This week Panjim HERALD of May 4, 2008, had an innocuous box on an inside page headlined "Domestic status for Dabolim!" The exclamation mark in the original seemed to suggest that the editors were on to something. The story was about a presentation, on the state's transportation scene, made by Prof Edgar Ribeiro, a member of the Regional Planning 2021 Task Force. In it there is this crucial line: "The interim report .. talks about Dabolim as the secondary airport - as a domestic airport - once Mopa international is commissioned."
http://www.goanet.org/post.php?name=News&list=goanet&info=2008-May/author&po st_id=073306 So what was the exclamation mark for? The Editors haven't said a word ever since but plenty of portents are there for Goa, if one takes a close look at the implications. Besides, like rolling thunder, the TIMES OF INDIA has since weighed in with a series of articles on Dabolim, an editorial (on two airports in general) culminating in a newsreport today on Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel's views on Mopa. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Goa/Goa_should_act_fast_on_new_airport_sa ys_Patel/articleshow/3026328.cms To recap our observations up to this point: 1. The "Dabolim domestic, Mopa international" proposal of Edgar Ribeiro is a significant improvement over the provisions of Union Cabinet Resolution 2000 which mandated the outright closure of Dabolim civil enclave upon the commissioning of Mopa. But while there may now be a "stay on execution", Goa will have to contend with the real risk of Dabolim's "death from natural causes" i.e. due to plane disuetude. So caution needs to be exercised to ensure that 'negligence" (deliberate or inadvertent) does not lead to Dabolim civil enclave's premature closure. The present scrap of a plan is fraught with such risks. First and foremost, it should be established unambiguously that, by virtue of the award of "International" to Mopa, courtesy Edgar Ribeiro, Dabolim does not lose the right to the use of its present ICAO code, GOI, given that "I" possibly stands for "international". Something like this happened to Hyderabad's HYD (although by prior agreement among the parties concerned) when Begumpet civil enclave closed and HIA opened recently. In fact, due to this curious procedure, the ATC services for the new airport are actually still being provided by the old one, 40 km away! There may well be a similar problem brewing at Bangalore though nothing has been mentioned on these lines yet in the media. Hence when the GOI code goes to Mopa then the Navy may well continue to run ATC for Mopa - from Dabolim! This should not be acceptable. If an assurance is NOT provided upfront that Mopa will have a separate ICAO code and ATC of its own, then the cat is well and truly out of the bag. Historic Dabolim civil enclave, a highly convenient civilian transportation node, is headed for the dumps (except for its ATC) and the Ribeiro panel would be an accomplice in a plane charade against Goa. 2. Now let us consider the status of "international" flights at Dabolim in detail. The scheduled international flights are sparse (even less so now after the recent discontinuation of some national carrier flights to the Gulf). How will it matter if these practically non-existent flights are transferred to Mopa? Then there is the more pertinent matter of charter flights. They amount to an ostensibly impressive number of about 700-800 a year at Dabolim. Even if the period is taken as 6 months' tourism season, they result in only about 4 flights per day! What kind of "international" airport would Mopa be with 1 or 2 scheduled international flights per day (at best) and about 4 charter flights per day (that too during the season)? TIMES OF INDIA (May 9) has as much as a half page worth of material on Dabolim airport including sound bytes from three worthies. A lot of it is froth but at its very core there is a serious information gap. For starters it says "international passenger traffic will [rise] four fold from the current 2 lakhs to the projected 8 lakhs." It is not stated whether this is only charter passengers or charter passengers plus foreigners traveling on domestic flights. Later it says that 2 lakhs refers to a 9 month period from April to December 2007. And to cap things off, it says "International passenger traffic has seen a steady growth -- from 1.6 lakh foreign tourists in 1996-97 to 4 lakhs in 2006-07 -- but now it HAS HIT A PLATEAU; THE PERCENTAGE GROWTH IN FOREIGN TOURISTS IN 2006-07 WAS ONLY .02, PERHAPS THE LOWEST IN THE DECADE." (emphasis mine). Note the disconnect regarding 4 lakhs as well as the year 2006-07. Hence the jury is out about charter traffic growth at Dabolim. In the mean timethere is a rather insidious implication of granting "international" status to Mopa on flimsy grounds as outlined above. It may be to enable the existing over-designed Mopa airport blue-print, a Rs 1300 crore mega-project (courtesy ICAO), to go ahead unchanged given the aura surrounding so-called "international airports". Anything international has got to be big, right? The actual need in the light of the discussion above is to begin from scratch and determine (a) the minimum size for Mopa at start-up and (b) a viable business model for it when (c) Dabolim is operating in tandem. There has been no significant move to scrap the ICAO plan so far to start a fresh process like this. To return to the Ribeiro plan, what kind of surface connectivity issues would be posed for people from Goa (especially from the south) who want to catch (the rare) scheduled international flights out of Mopa in the north? Then there is the related question of what kind of competition issues (especially of the cross border "Sindhudurg" type) would be posed for South Goa hotels by charter flights operating only from Mopa? Does the Ribeiro plan have the blessings of the Hoteliers Association of South Goa (HASG)? This should have been cited up front. As for the proposed domestic specialization at Dabolim, how is this aided by the continuation of slot restrictions (for military flight training) for four and a half hours every weekday morning? Low cost, short haul, shuttle flights would find the, hopefully, completely free slot regime (assuming NO Naval ATC!) at Mopa much more convenient. Once surface connectivity problems are sorted out (say by four-laning NH-17 etc) there may be a clamour for domestic flights (currently to the tune of about 40 a day) to shift too.The end-result would be that nothing would be left for Dabolim civil enclave to do and it would quietly slip completely into military hands! Wouldn't this go against the Goa government's wish for two airports in the state, hopefully in perpetuity, assuming peace prevails? In fact Goa should be setting the lead for the country's novel bid for "an airport in every district". The TIMES OF INDIA editorial of May 9 "Off course" puts the problem of closure of old airports brilliantly: "When a fully operational airport that was used for commercial, private and defence operations is rendered useless - or is underutilised for only VVIP or private jets - it amounts to the government reneging on its obligation to do what is best in the public interest. Not only are there delays in setting up new infrastructure, what exists is not being utilised effectively." http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/Off_Course/rssarticlesh ow/3023088.cms 3. The Civil Aviation Minister now makes the following point that Goa government is dithering on Mopa: "Goa has an issue about keeping the old airport in Dabolim operational and this can be discussed at length. But work on the new airport and land acquisition must start." Sorry Praful bhai. The onus is on your ministry to come up with a fool proof plan for Mopa for 50 years in which for the first 20-25 years it operates in tandem with Dabolim AND THERE IS NO RISK OF CLOSURE OF THE LATTER DUE TO VIABILITY OF THE FORMER BEING THREATENED. Goa must not fall for the "keep talking, we'll see later" ploy. After all it is the operational plan for two airports that will determine the start-up design and business model of Mopa. And the latter in turn will determine the cost and the investment plan (in terms of PPP stakeholders) required. All signs point to a blatant attempt to stampede Goa government into a hasty move on Mopa which may end up being seriously regretted to put it mildly. This should be an SOS to all concerned Goans.