India’s aviation boom may be heading toward an unexpected collision with another rapidly expanding mode of transport -- high-speed rail. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday issued a stark warning to airline investors, arguing that India’s upcoming bullet train corridors would overwhelmingly dominate several high-density short-haul routes.
Speaking at the CII Business Summit, Vaishnaw said corridors such as Mumbai-Pune, Hyderabad-Bengaluru and Bengaluru-Chennai would eventually become “99% dominated by railways”, much like what happened in Japan, China and South Korea after the arrival of high-speed rail. He pointed to dramatic reductions in travel time under the planned network: Mumbai-Pune in 48 minutes, Hyderabad-Bengaluru in 2 hours 8 minutes and Bengaluru-Chennai in just 78 minutes. “Nobody will fly on these routes,” he said.
