Air Transport of India
- J.R.D. Tata was the first person to make a solo flight from Mumbai to Karachi in 1931.
- In 1935, the ‘Tata Air Lines’ started its operation between Mumbai and Thiruvananathapuram and in 1937 between Mumbai and Delhi.
- In 1953, all the private Airline companies were nationalized and Indian Airlines and Air India came into existence.
- Air India administers international flights while Indian Airlines caters to the domestic circuit.
- Indian Airlines is now known by the name of ‘Indian’.
- Vayudoot Limited started in 1981 as a private air carrier and later on it merged with Indian Airlines.
- Pawan Hans Limited operates helicopter support services to oil sector, hill stations and remote areas.
- A number of private airlines also operates is India. They are Jet Airways, Sahara, etc.
- The Civil Aviation Centre in Fursatgarh near Allahabad provided, among other things, ground training to the pilots.
There are 12 International Airports in India:
| Begumpet Airport, Hyderabad Calicut International Airport, Calicut Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai Chennai International Airport, Chennai HAL Airport, Bangalore Goa Airport in Vasco da Gama city, Goa Lokpriya Gopinath Bordolio International Airport, Guwahati Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata Rja Sansi International Airport, Amritsar Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Ahmadabad Thiruvananathapuram International Airport, Thiruvananathapuram |
The Indira Gandhi International Airport and the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport handle more than half of the air traffic in South Asia. Besides these airports several other domestic airports are located in India.
In total, there are more than 334 civilian airports in India – 238 with paved runways and 108 with unpaved runways.