My friends in India are quite pleased about the way T2 has been done. Needless to say that Media are
excited about T2.
The Hindu: "The T2 terminal is touted to be larger than Singapore's Changi T3 (3.80 lakh sqm) and London's Heathrow T5 (3.53 lakh sqm)"
Ibnlive: "The four-storey glass marvel, whose design has been inspired by a dancing peacock"
NDTV: "The terminal boasts of tens of thousands of artifacts and paintings, housing arguably one the largest collections in the world at an airport."
Indiatoday: A three kilometer long 'art walk' titled 'Jaya He' has been built inside the T2. It displays Indian art pieces between the 8th century and 19th century
Is it actually worth it for a developing country like India? While we try and throw spanner into Mangalyaan type of space projects, actually these T2 type of wastages should be culled. This a classic example of just copying existing implementations, with no attention to what is actually required today and in future. Actually India has gone beyond aping the western world's model of airport building.Who defines that airports should be built in such a way? If the passengers can get in and out in a queue, receive their bags in time and fly out & in in-time then the purpose is well served.
I read on the net that people on average spend 4-10 hours on airport layovers. I also understand for Airbus a380 needs more landing space, but where is the need for a lavish layover when there is a billion people in the country who would need a lot more space in future. There is an argument that if you are stuck in delays, then the layovers could be useful to spend your time. Seriously? I don't think this is a sound argument... if you are stuck because of delays, you may be keen to window-shop but would you go visit the art gallery? I think if you did, you might miss another flight and get further delayed.
Why is nobody thinking about alternate designs and building things suited to Indian context? In fact this should be the case for all countries. When the world is reeling in recession and billions are starving, Countries need to plan and build in a sustainable way. As internet and Kinect type of technologies are enabling virtual presence, business related travel might actually start to drop off over the next few years. Leisure and tourism might be the key travel reasons, Even if this is not the so - why overload airport infrastructure for very little returns? The maintenance cost over years is going to mount on the public. Am I the only one who is concerned about such extravagant, no-purpose layovers?
Let me clarify that I am not against building new terminals or expanding infrastructure, I only advocate for minimalistic and effective use of funds, acreage in such infrastructure projects. There is no point in competing with China or West on these projects. There are also additional indirect expenses like electricity utilisation, people and maintenance costs. This money could have pooled for building multiple bus-stands or local train stations.
Above all, not many would know that India's aviation policy under UPA-2, allegedly 200,000 seats a week has been magnanimously given to middle-east sector through Jet-Etihad deal (Ref: https://medium.com/p/ab752d0cf543). If this is the case, how will T2 operate successfully as a Hub?
Literally on a very bad foundation, a multi-story T2 has been built. Even if the above posture of Jet deal is a farce, still it begs the question - why should India lavishly spend on airports in a needless and meaningless race of sprawling airports?
excited about T2.
The Hindu: "The T2 terminal is touted to be larger than Singapore's Changi T3 (3.80 lakh sqm) and London's Heathrow T5 (3.53 lakh sqm)"
Ibnlive: "The four-storey glass marvel, whose design has been inspired by a dancing peacock"
NDTV: "The terminal boasts of tens of thousands of artifacts and paintings, housing arguably one the largest collections in the world at an airport."
Indiatoday: A three kilometer long 'art walk' titled 'Jaya He' has been built inside the T2. It displays Indian art pieces between the 8th century and 19th century
Is it actually worth it for a developing country like India? While we try and throw spanner into Mangalyaan type of space projects, actually these T2 type of wastages should be culled. This a classic example of just copying existing implementations, with no attention to what is actually required today and in future. Actually India has gone beyond aping the western world's model of airport building.Who defines that airports should be built in such a way? If the passengers can get in and out in a queue, receive their bags in time and fly out & in in-time then the purpose is well served.I read on the net that people on average spend 4-10 hours on airport layovers. I also understand for Airbus a380 needs more landing space, but where is the need for a lavish layover when there is a billion people in the country who would need a lot more space in future. There is an argument that if you are stuck in delays, then the layovers could be useful to spend your time. Seriously? I don't think this is a sound argument... if you are stuck because of delays, you may be keen to window-shop but would you go visit the art gallery? I think if you did, you might miss another flight and get further delayed.
Why is nobody thinking about alternate designs and building things suited to Indian context? In fact this should be the case for all countries. When the world is reeling in recession and billions are starving, Countries need to plan and build in a sustainable way. As internet and Kinect type of technologies are enabling virtual presence, business related travel might actually start to drop off over the next few years. Leisure and tourism might be the key travel reasons, Even if this is not the so - why overload airport infrastructure for very little returns? The maintenance cost over years is going to mount on the public. Am I the only one who is concerned about such extravagant, no-purpose layovers?
Let me clarify that I am not against building new terminals or expanding infrastructure, I only advocate for minimalistic and effective use of funds, acreage in such infrastructure projects. There is no point in competing with China or West on these projects. There are also additional indirect expenses like electricity utilisation, people and maintenance costs. This money could have pooled for building multiple bus-stands or local train stations.
Above all, not many would know that India's aviation policy under UPA-2, allegedly 200,000 seats a week has been magnanimously given to middle-east sector through Jet-Etihad deal (Ref: https://medium.com/p/ab752d0cf543). If this is the case, how will T2 operate successfully as a Hub?
Literally on a very bad foundation, a multi-story T2 has been built. Even if the above posture of Jet deal is a farce, still it begs the question - why should India lavishly spend on airports in a needless and meaningless race of sprawling airports?
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