Yesterday’s Routes Asia Strategy Forum attempted to highlight some of the key issues that are impacting the commercial aviation business across Asia, the Pacific region and Australasia. With a high profile list of speakers the content was specially developed to provide a unique insight into the business with informed moderators ensuring the key issues were not glossed over.

The HUB highlights the key quotes from yesterday's discussions...

Rajeev Jain, CEO, Mumbai Airport:

“Mumbai is a city of hope and despair, of money and of power and above all it’s a city of dreams.”

“It is a gateway into India and the capital of Maharashtra state, the most populated state of India, if you take in the metropolitan area this reaches 18 million people.”

“By 2030 we will have surpassed North America and Europe by GDP growth, population and defence spending. By 2030 Asia will regain its position as an economic powerhouse as it was before 1500.”

“The likely introduction of AirAsia India into the market will increase competition.”

“There are still artificial barriers, fuel today accounts for some 45-50% of costs.”

“At the moment no airline in India is part of a global alliance.”

“Indian outbound tourism is much higher than inbound and the government has to look into smoothing visa procedures.”

Aditya Ghosh, president and CEO, IndiGo:

“My dream is that in the next decade we have more than 1,000 planes flown by more than one profitable airline transporting people across India with fares that are affordable for all.”

“We have experienced growth rates that people in the west would give their right arms for.”

“Two highly congested airports have been modernised [in India] and a number of Greenfield airports have been developed. The average fares of in key metropolitan areas have halved.”

“Aviation is a necessity not just because it helps tens of millions of people to travel around but it also helps people to take job opportunities they couldn’t have considered before. Not just flight attendants, but construction workers, aviation security personnel and the list goes on and on.”

“Indian airlines costs have increased by 4 per cent while those of Malaysian carriers have fallen by 3 per cent.”

“Last year capacity actually went down, yet demand has outstripped supply.”

“Like any business the key challenge is to keep the costs low and make our products more affordable.”

Deepak Brara, commercial director, Air India:

“We have 20 Boeing 787s on order and we expect to fly then in the next couple of months, we are looking at expanding our network and looking at flights to Australia, Italy, a secondary market in the UK, and the US.”

“We are not focusing on sixth freedoms in the next few years but on regaining market share.”

“We have had ongoing dialogue with Star Alliance and those dialogues continue.”

John Shepley, SVP network management, Etihad Airways:

“What’s happened just recently is airberlin have announced the strengthening of their Berlin and Dusseldorf hubs whilst also slightly strengthening of hub operations of Abu Dhabi.”

“Unless both partners are successful we don’t have a successful partnership.”

Anil Srivastava, joint secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation:

“Bilaterals are very critical, we have bilateral agreements with most countries but over the next three to four years we will be looking to modifying these agreements.”

“The most critical thing is to have a strong domestic carrier, we are reaching a stage where infrastructure is being taken care of and government is being very proactive, the Indian Government now needs a strong domestic airline to take and develop.”

Dr Subhash Goyal, chairman, Indian Association of Tour Operators:

“Indians are the top spenders in Dubai, Singapore and London.”

Neil Mills, CEO, SpiceJet:

“Cost structures are so high it is impossible to be a low-cost airline in India.”

“We are seeing a lot of self connecting passengers and that includes traffic from other carriers, this is anecdotal evidence.”

“Low-cost carriers can come together to form alliances but only as long as its beneficial for both of them, I think there are benefits in an alliance but often egos get in the way of reality.”

Hou Wei, VP, Hainan Airlines:

“People talk about Open Skies but in China this is very unlikely.”

“We still have very little tourism between China and India, there needs to be more direct service.”

Venggataro Niadu, head of network and fleet management, Air Asia X:

“There is a lot of potential in India.”

Compiled by Oliver Clark, Editor - Routes News