By Viviek Pattanayak in Bhubaneswar, October 10, 2016: Few years ago a study made by International Air Transport Association (IATA) showed that the investors of airlines have not made any substantial financial return in the last forty years although more passengers have been carried for a longer distance at a shorter time with more number of aircraft, volume and value of cargo have increased, more fuel efficient engines have been installed, and technology in airspace management has made spectacular development. Aviation turbine fuel was the culprit since its volatility was unpredictable.

Oil rich countries sponsored their airlines with great enthusiasm during this period upsetting the aviation dominance of traditional and well-established airlines of the western economies. Since middle of 2014,oil price has fallen drastically and there is no sign of its upward surge with the recent failure in the conclave of oil producing countries to take any decision with regard to whether to keep the price high by lowering production. Further, recently, the richest and the largest oil producing country experienced a deficit budget for the first time in many years and made substantial increase in its petrol price by taxing its domestic consumers.

The years of cacophony on environmental concern ending with the Paris accord on climate change might awaken Saudi Arabia to free itself from “oil addiction”, but for its stable financial budget it will take years before its dependence on oil in budget making would disappear.In order to maintain certain standard of life of its denizens, the country would depend upon producing oil even if it is at low price.

Meanwhile, shale oil has come into the global market pioneered by the biggest oil consuming nation. More shale oil resources are being explored with success across the world and huge such resources are likely to be exploited by countries like India which even has modest reserves of shale.

Off-shore oil reserves are yet to be tapped fully. Disastrous oil exploration of British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico across the State of Louisiana in the early days of President Obama’s tenure and sad memories of Exxon oil spill of the last century have dampened the enthusiasm of oil behemoths to go aggressively with off-shore oil. With improvement of technology, greater security scrutiny and more intense regulatory supervision, off-shore exploitation would remerge sooner or later.

Coal gasification technology having been successfully tried out by South Africa, China having adopted it and India following suit would indicate that petroleum could also be produced from the existing untapped coal reserves. India has a huge quantity of non-coking coal. So do many countries outside the present oil exporting countries.

Solar energy propelled aircraft has made an exciting appearance in the aviation horizon with near successful round the world flight. When this experiment will be commercially successful is the question of time. Only few years ago, solar energy based electricity generation was not only exorbitantly costly its viability was in question. Now the solar energy is a viable source in the electricity grid. Even many have started installing solar electric sets on their roof tops to reduce the cost of buying of electricity from the distribution utilities.

In the background of this, one can see although some airlines are folding up in the world, there is no decline of air traffic movement. The latest statistics of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) reflect a handsome growth. The middle class is growing in an impressive rate through out the world with more tangible indication in the countries like India, China, Indonesia and Philippines.

The Latin countries in spite of scams and depression in Brazil, inflation and unpopular pro-poor programme in Argentina, unemployment and budgetary deficit in Colombia, indigenous stir in Bolivia and recent earthquake in Ecuador are experiencing growing middle class. Even in Africa there is a remarkable spurt of middle class.

By 2035, the world is expected to have almost 33% of people who would be termed as middle class bringing tectonic shift in economic power balance in the world. The consumption pattern and life style of people would change dramatically by this growth unheard of since the time of transition with advent of industrial revolution. Further, increased aging but healthier population in emerging markets and advanced countries would contribute to the demand.

Travel, leisure, holidays, and enjoyment would be influenced by this social and economic momentum. Tourism would grow domestically and internationally. In the year 2015, in India alone, air travel has made significant progress to boost domestic tourism.

Rising middle class does not mean that all will have sufficient money to travel business class and fully-paid economy class. There would be lower middle class who would prefer air service to railways and road transport for business purposes and for saving travel time. This is already indicated in India. Scope for budget airlines, therefore, will not diminish and on the contrary these airlines with falling fuel price will make hay when the sun shines.

There is always possibility that for the sake of competition many of them may resort to cutting corners on safety, and even short circuit regulatory requirement. Legacy airlines have traditions of years, procedures in place, and reputation to keep.Budget and low cost airlines being recent creatures are yet to develop that background. Therefore, there would be need for stricter regulation, inspection, and audit.

Although supersonic air transport got a jolt after the Concord crash, it is significant to note that human endeavour for new adventure has not ceased since then. Both Europe and Japan are moving ahead with hypersonic aircraft project with ramjet engine to give a speed of Mach 8 or Mach 5 to be fuelled by hydrogen either generated through electrolysis of water or by freeing hydrogen from methane.

Under HIKARI project, there is a joint venture between Europe and Japan. The scientists of the Soviet Union had developed aircraft to be fuelled entirely by hydrogen. In fact, IL96 was expected to have been flown by that fuel. They had also developed supersonic passenger jets to rival Concorde. Who knows supersonic aircraft may come back with rising confidence in the Russian entrepreneurship?

Duration of transoceanic and transcontinental flights would reduce drastically to make such flights attractive for high net worth individuals (HNI) as flying time between places like Brussels and Sydney could be completed in two hours. Since there is no sign of reduction of wealth of ultra-rich in the world there would be market for such aircraft as first class fare for one hundred passengers flying such long distances multiple times a day would make the operation viable. It is estimated that by 2030 this project would give employment opportunity to five hundred thousand people with three to four billion euro being deployed.

In addition to the hypersonic aircraft, there is distinct possibility of sub-orbital flights making entry in the domain of air transport in the coming decade. There are entrepreneurs and also ultra-wealthy passengers to support this venture.

While outlook for growth of civil aviation is optimistic, there is no mitigation of apprehension from the point of aviation security. Although Al Qaeda terrorist infrastructure has been substantially destroyed by consistent and coordinated effort, the latest deadly Brussels attack on airport coming close on heel to the wanton pre-planned and pre-meditated attack in Paris with ISIS being the sole perpetrator of such barbaric terrorism reflects that aviation security has to be tighter and tighter to wipe out unlawful interference which would make passenger facilitation in turn more irksome. Visa restriction would affect movement of people from certain countries and passengers with passports of certain nationalities would continue to be affected.

Today aircraft are heavily dependent upon computers and software. Hacking of computers has become possible with all the cyber security in place. Assange’s WikiLeaks, revelation of CIA secrets by Snowdown, and release of Panama papers expose the weakness in the cyber security. How secure an aircraft is in the midflight in the event of a rogue virus having made ingress to the computer system with deliberate and preplanned work of highly ingenuous terrorist is a question many have raised?

Is the industry conscious of it in the mad rush for commercial benefits? The over zealous national regulators, conscious media, judicial activism and more so vibrant civil society of air travellers will put increasing pressure on the industry to take pro-active action to secure cyber space.

The deliberate crash last year by a young co-pilot of a passenger aircraft flying from Barcelona to Munich on to the mountains ignoring repeated pleas of the captain locked out from the cockpit with death of all passengers and crew was unprecedented. Although the Egypt Air plunging into the Atlantic Ocean two decades earlier had raised the suspicion of terrorism and psychiatric problem, it had not been pursued by the international regulator to go to the bottom of the issue.

Now aviation community is confronting with the problem as to how to identity such abnormal elements to obliterate such dangers to safety of aviation. The discipline of aviation medicine has to expand its scope of work to handle such abnormalities. Next generation of aviation professionals perhaps would go through more rigorous screening at the time of recruitment so that such danger is avoided.

Similarly, background check of personnel being recruited into the aviation sector would perhaps become mandatory to ensure people with sympathy or association with terrorist groups have no access to the aviation sector in any capacity whatsoever. There is also danger of infection getting among the personnel after they have entered the service. The detection of this malady may be a part of mid-career review of aviation staff.

Danger to aviation safety would come from proliferation of drones. What international standards and recommended practices would evolve to regulate their flights would draw more attention with elapse of time.

Drones will grow in number and also its versatility will be eye-catching. Drones may even carry human beings to avoid road traffic congestion. Similarly, recently developed volvocopter, new type of rotary wing aircraft, in Germany will bring flexibility to air travel.

Re-emergence of Zeppelin is being considered in aviation circles. Unfortunate accident of this large flying behemoth in New Jersey flying from Germany in the early thirties of the last century even when aircraft had come off age brought the era of dirigible to an end. Second World War distracted attention of aviation industry. President Roosevelt’s clarion call after the war to use aircraft for trade, commerce, transport of cargo and mail, and passenger travel was responsible for attention getting focussed on aircraft-twin engine or multiple engine and larger aircraft with longer range. Serious consideration has been made in recent times by the entrepreneurial industry to bring back zeppelin.

To sum up, in next twenty years there will be flying vehicles of multiple type in the air at different heights cruising at different speed. They could be turbo-prop, jet aircraft, supersonic and hypersonic aircraft, drones, dirigibles, helicopters, and Volvocopters with variety of engines and using diverse source of fuel-ATF, solar energy, hydrogen and helium et al.

Can the regulatory regime be the same to cope with such complexity in air?

*(Former Director of International Civil Aviation Organization)