In primary airports in India, low cost carriers often end up paying a large amount of their operational costs in airport charges. This could act as an added burden to airliners along with high ATF charges. Airport planners and operators must look to develop this multi-airport system in metropolitan airports that serve a large air traffic. With low cost carriers handling a large passenger share in the market, they could be the driving factors to development of low cost airports. LCC's catalyze the development of cheaper airport terminals which have designs much different than traditional terminals. The competition between legacy carriers and the low cost carriers in their operation costs could prove to be a challenge for airport operators to handle. But from an airport operator's view, the secondary airport should be treated as a support system or a supplement to handling traffic to the primary airport. To avoid conflict of interest with the primary airport operator a concept of single ownership of both the primary and secondary airport is introduced in this paper. Also, the rule that a new Greenfield project within 150 km of a current existing airport is not allowed by the government will be challenged and scrutinized. The benefits of repealing this rule will be studied in this paper. Looking into the horizon, it is not going to be far when major airports across the country will be looking to develop secondary support airports in close proximities. The 150 kilometer rule is mainly held to protect the interests of the airport operator. But the single ownership concept or the multi-airport ownership by a single owner could help solve this issue. .
Concepts relating to reducing building and operational costs of secondary airports will be discussed. The overall issues to be concentrated on during the planning and development of secondary airports are – .
What kind of airport and airport facilities are to be provided.