In his second stint as Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel has had to face several challenges—a slowdown in the sector, Air India’s bailout package and aggressive private airlines. In this Idea Exchange moderated by Chief of Bureau Pranab Dhal Samanta, Patel speaks of the aviation sector and Cong-NCP ties

Pranab Dhal Samanta: This is Praful Patel's second stint as Minister of Civil Aviation. Can you tell us of the challenges you face in the sector and comment on the political scene?

Five years of civil aviation have been very interesting and exciting, sometimes with a lot of pressure. The system in India is such that if you don't do anything, no one asks you anything and you are not accountable. In trying to push things in a sector, there are constant questions and pressures. One can certainly feel a sense of satisfaction at the end of five years, together with a tinge of remorse because the entire sector is so dependant on fuel and the global aviation scenario. The oil prices of late 2007 and upto the middle of 2008 shook the foundations of this sector. India has been doing remarkably well because of the facilitation we had done in this sector: opening up, liberalisation, de-regularisation, a lot of public private partnerships, etc. At least a direction was sought to be given. In 2007, the fuel prices shot up and the recession also set in. Today, the bigger problem in aviation sector is because of the recession. We have 30 per cent less people flying than last year. That is not because of fares or any fundamental change in the aviation sector, but due to the economic environment. The first casualty in any slowdown is travel and tourism.

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