I don't know why everyone keeps harping about the Chennai airport being closed or reopened, when it is the Railways that is actually hauling hundreds or maybe thousands of times more passengers. Look at all their hard work.
None of the railway stations are built on an actual flood plain, like the Chennai airport. Maybe that's because the railways employs actual engineers, who can do real engineering. That one of the Chennai airport landing strips crosses over the Adyar river is an inexcusable blunder. However, railway tracks must necessarily cross over water bodies. There is actual mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment along these tracks, unlike a landing strip which is, well, mostly just a flat strip of tarmac. Even so, all railways facilities were restored well before that godforsaken airport came back to life. Equipment submerged for days was made to work before the airport guys could dry a patch of road.
Why shouldn't we just hand over the Airports Authority of India to the Indian Railways? Shortly after independence, the railways achieved almost 100% indigenisation of every technology and input that goes into their operation. On the aeronautical front, forget commercial jets, we can't even seem to make strategic fighter jets ourselves. Or radars. Or even airport terminals. Rail technology is under 200 years old. Human flight has been around for over 100 years. We have been independent for close to 70 years. So it's not like rail technology is old and solved, and aircraft technology is new fangled and complex.
I should like to know, what kind of morons run the aviation business in this country? We have sarkari spaceports that operate with a greater success rate than the developed countries, and our airports are worse than intercity bus stands. And privatisation does not help - anyone who has suffered the torture of picking up a passenger from Delhi's fancy shmancy Terminal 3 will vouch for that.
None of the railway stations are built on an actual flood plain, like the Chennai airport. Maybe that's because the railways employs actual engineers, who can do real engineering. That one of the Chennai airport landing strips crosses over the Adyar river is an inexcusable blunder. However, railway tracks must necessarily cross over water bodies. There is actual mechanical, electrical and electronic equipment along these tracks, unlike a landing strip which is, well, mostly just a flat strip of tarmac. Even so, all railways facilities were restored well before that godforsaken airport came back to life. Equipment submerged for days was made to work before the airport guys could dry a patch of road.
Why shouldn't we just hand over the Airports Authority of India to the Indian Railways? Shortly after independence, the railways achieved almost 100% indigenisation of every technology and input that goes into their operation. On the aeronautical front, forget commercial jets, we can't even seem to make strategic fighter jets ourselves. Or radars. Or even airport terminals. Rail technology is under 200 years old. Human flight has been around for over 100 years. We have been independent for close to 70 years. So it's not like rail technology is old and solved, and aircraft technology is new fangled and complex.
I should like to know, what kind of morons run the aviation business in this country? We have sarkari spaceports that operate with a greater success rate than the developed countries, and our airports are worse than intercity bus stands. And privatisation does not help - anyone who has suffered the torture of picking up a passenger from Delhi's fancy shmancy Terminal 3 will vouch for that.