The second Civil Aviation Week titled 'Airport and Airline 2008 Expo' concluded here on Thursday with usual fanfare. The show, which was held at Pragati Maidan New Delhi, from March 18 to 20, 2008 was attended by more than 150 exhibitors and 4,000 visitors from all across the world.

Organised by Exhibitions India, the three-day show was inaugurated by Minister of Civil Aviation Praful Patel on Tuesday and was attended by prominent leaders including Member of Parliament, Rajeev Shukla; High Commissioner of New Zealand to India, Rupert Holborow; Airport Authority of India Chairman, Dr K Ramalingam and others.

As India's Civil Aviation traffic has been growing and is further expected to enjoy a compounded growth of about 25% per annum for the next 20 years, the show provided a right platform for domestic and international players to showcase their products, services and technologies.

The show covered a gross area of 4500 sqm and was attended by a large number of companies dealing in civil aviation infrastructure, machines and equipments. The prominent among them were Airport Authority of India, Airways International, New Zealand, Bharat Petroleum Corporation of India, Deccan Aviation Limited, Go Air India, Kingfisher Airline, Motorola Enterprise Mobility, USA, Rittal India, Siemens India and others.

The show turned out to be quite a success as most of the exhibitors and visitors were visibly satisfied with the response and business enquiries they received at the exhibition. One of the unique features of the show was that it targeted disparate group of clients. Bruce Condie, Director, International Education, Red River College of Manitoba, Canada Aviation was there at the show to recruit prospective students of civil aviation courses.

"The civil aviation industry is suffering from acute manpower crunch all over the world. We are here to invite Indian students to join commercial pilot license courses and two-year business diploma in Aviation industry," said Condie.

Condie who was here in India to attend the show also spoke to number of organisations for future collaboration. He seemed visibly happy and said, "There were about 50 engineering students who were willing to join our courses in Canada. Our mission will be fulfilled even if we are able to enrol 2-3 students for the course," he said adding, "The process takes a lot of time and is quite expensive. There are problems of Visa also. At times, students are willing to join but do not have adequate resources, those who have resources are often stuck with the Visa problem. So our expectation is very realistic."

Airport Authority of India which had put up their stall and was one of the sponsors of the show received a good number of inquisitive visitors. "For us the show provided a platform to build relationship with people and create awareness about the work AAI has been doing. We are very satisfied with t he kind of response we received from visitors. There were a good number of foreign delegates who showed keen interest in our work," said Kishore Sengupta who represented AAI at the exhibition.

Apart from civil aviation companies, there were companies like Reymond who also participated in the show. "We participated for the first time and are quite delighted with the response," said Anirudha Choudhury, Sales Co-ordinator of Reymond Furnishing.

As air travel in India becomes more affordable, it has opened new vistas to various other ancillary units. "We want to make sure that we are a major player in seat fabric and curtains being supplied to various airlines," said Anirudha.

Talking about the show, Anirudha said that the number of enquiries received goes to prove the popularity of the show. "The show was well planned and well managed and provided a good exposure to us," he said.

Likewise Delhi-based Vspectra Communication System which has been participating in the show for the last couple of years was satisfied with the business queries they received from clients. Giving it a rating of 7/10, the Company's representative who refused to be named said, "The exhibition was well organised but more should be done to attract serious business clients to participate in the show."