Airports to be ranked on passenger feedback

New Delhi, Jul 10: Passengers' rants or raves about services provided at India's major airports could soon actually make an impact with the airports' economic regulator putting in place a new system to monitor the ground operations and service standards.

The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) that came into existence in 2008, has so far been focused on its responsibility of setting airport tariffs, but will now assess their performance on the ground for 16 major airports as well.

The regulator will rate airports based on parameters such as cost efficiency, entry time, security clearance, check-in and boarding facility, among other services at airports. A critical component of the rating would be passenger feedback.

“As a part of our mandate, we have a major item we have not looked at so far which is setting and monitoring performance standards of airports. We want to make airports attractive and efficient and plan to monitor the service levels of airports,” AERA Chairman S Machendranathan said media.

“We want to bring in healthy competition among the airports. The airports showing improvement in their performance over a period of time may be incentivised by giving them higher tariff,” Mr. Machendranathan said.

At present, the airports in India are ranked by Airport Council International's Airport Service Quality surveys every quarter.

“As a part of our mandate, we have a major item we have not looked at so far which is setting and monitoring performance standards of airports. We want to make airports attractive and efficient and plan to monitor the service levels of airports,” AERA Chairman S. Machendranathan said media.

Foster competition

“We want to bring in healthy competition among the airports. The airports showing improvement in their performance over a period of time may be incentivised by giving them higher tariff,” Mr. Machendranathan said.

At present, the airports in India are ranked by Airport Council International's Airport Service Quality surveys every quarter. The major part of AERA's mandate has been to fix tariff for major airports such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Goa, Guwahati, Lucknow and Srinagar.

As per the AERA Act, one of the other functions of the authority is “to monitor the set performance standards relating to quality, continuity and reliability of service.”

“We need to fix the parameters of our rating such as how long does it take to enter the airport, how is the check-in procedure, time taken in security clearance, what are the boarding facilities, etc. We would also take feedback from people asking them to rate the airport for us. We are exploring the methodology,” he said.

Cost cutting

The AERA chief added that cutting capital costs could also be an important criterion.

“We are not a tariff determination authority but an economic regulatory body that will have to look at the efficiency of the airports too,” he said.

Aviation experts said some of the airports run by the state-owned Airports Authority of India need significant improvements.

“AERA needs to come up with transparent standards for judging the airports' quality of service. These should be developed in consultation with airports airlines and user groups,” Amber Dubey, partner and India head of aerospace and defence at global consultancy KPMG said.

“AERA should consider using inspectors and auditors from the private sector instead of creating a huge bureaucracy internally.”