Air transport and pipelines

Detail

1. Air transport: what it is good at

• Air transport is the fastest mode of transport. It is also the costliest.
• It is used for two main things:
• long-distance passengers;

• valuable cargo: goods that are light, costly or go bad quickly (medicines, electronics, flowers, mail).

• It goes where roads and railways cannot. Planes fly over mountains, snowfields and deserts.

• Northern Canada: the Inuit (Arctic people of northern Canada) get supplies by air, because the land is frozen and has almost no roads or railways.

• Himalayas: landslides, avalanches (sudden falls of snow and ice down a slope) and heavy snow often block roads. Then aircraft are often the only link.

• It has military (strategic) value. Air power can strike targets far away. NCERT gives the example of US and British air strikes in Iraq.

2. Why air transport grew most in rich, industrial countries

• It needs costly infrastructure:
• hangars (large sheds where aircraft are parked and repaired);
• runways for landing and take-off;

• fuelling and maintenance facilities.

• Building airports costs a lot, so only busy routes pay. Air transport therefore grew most in industrialised countries with heavy traffic and people who can afford to fly.

Feature	Air transport	Pipelines
Speed	Fastest mode	Slow but continuous flow
Cost of use	Highest per tonne-km	Low once the pipe is built
Starting cost	Airports, hangars, fuelling	High cost of laying pipe; route cannot change later
What it carries	Passengers, light and valuable cargo	Liquids and gases: water, oil, gas, LPG, liquefied coal, milk (New Zealand)
Main limit	Weather, fuel cost, emissions	Fixed route; leaks; hard to repair; open to sabotage and politics

3. Inter-continental air routes (NCERT Fig. 7.16)

• The belt: the main routes form a clear east–west belt in the Northern Hemisphere, roughly the band where most of the world's rich, crowded lands lie.
• Densest areas: the eastern USA, Western Europe and Southeast Asia.
• USA share: NCERT says the USA has 60% of the world's airways.
• Main nodal points (a node is a hub where many routes meet and passengers change flights), roughly west to east:
• North America: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York;
• Europe: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Rome, Moscow;
• South Asia: Karachi, New Delhi, Mumbai;
• Southeast and East Asia: Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo.

4. Where air services are thin

• Weak regions: Africa, Asiatic Russia (Siberia and the Russian Far East) and South America.
• Southern Hemisphere between 10° and 35° latitude: few air services (NCERT exercise 3(ii)). There are three reasons:
• sparse population: fewer people means fewer passengers;
• limited land: this belt is mostly ocean (southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans);
• lower economic development: less trade and fewer people who can pay for flights.

5. Beyond NCERT: new hubs, emissions and India

• Gulf hubs: Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi.
• These cities sit near the centre of the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa).
• They use the hub-and-spoke model: a big airline brings passengers from many "spoke" cities into one "hub" airport, and they change planes there for onward flights.

• As a result, long Europe–Asia and Asia–Africa trips now often pass through the Gulf. Earlier they passed through Karachi, Mumbai or Bangkok.

• CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation): an ICAO scheme. ICAO is the International Civil Aviation Organization, the UN body for civil aviation.

• It was set up in 2016. It is the first and only global market-based measure aimed only at CO₂ from international aviation [6].
• Aim: carbon-neutral growth from 2020. Airlines must offset emissions above the 2020 level, which means paying for cuts in emissions somewhere else [6].

• Scheme period: 2021–2035 [6].

• UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik): India's regional connectivity scheme, launched 2016.

• What it does: it gives subsidies so airlines fly to small, unserved and underserved airports at low fares.
• Reach: as of 25 March 2026, 663 routes run across 95 airports, heliports and water aerodromes. More than 3.44 lakh flights have carried over 163 lakh passengers [2][3].
• Modified UDAN (approved 2026):
  • it runs for 10 years, FY 2026–27 to FY 2035–36;
  • outlay of ₹28,840 crore;
  • 100 airports to be built from existing unserved airstrips [2][3].
• (See: india-transport-communication.)

6. Pipelines: what they are and what they carry

• Pipeline transport moves fluids through closed pipes in an uninterrupted (steady, non-stop) flow.
• Goods carried:
• water;
• petroleum (crude oil and products);
• natural gas;
• liquefied coal (coal turned into a liquid or slurry so it can flow);
• LPG (liquefied petroleum gas: cooking gas), piped to homes in many places;

• milk in New Zealand, piped from farms to factories.

• Why use pipelines:

• once laid, running costs are low;
• there are no traffic jams and little loss on the way;

• the flow does not stop for weather.

• Where they run: pipelines link oil wells → refineries → ports → markets. Such networks exist in Europe, Russia, West Asia and India.

7. USA: the classic pipeline network

• The network: the USA has a dense network of oil pipelines. They run from producing areas (Gulf Coast, Texas) to consuming areas (the industrial north-east).
• Pipeline share: about 17% of US freight tonne-km goes by pipeline (NCERT). A tonne-km means one tonne carried for one kilometre.
• Big Inch pipeline (1942–43):
• What it carries: petroleum.
• Route: from the Gulf of Mexico (Texas) oilfields to the north-eastern states (NCERT exercise 1(iv)).
• Why it was built: during World War II, German submarines attacked oil tankers sailing along the Atlantic coast. A land pipeline kept oil moving safely.

8. Central Asian gas: Turkmenistan's pipelines

• Turkmenistan has huge gas reserves. It pipes gas to Iran and to China.
• Central Asia–China gas pipeline (working since 2009):
• Route: Turkmenistan → Uzbekistan → Kazakhstan → China (it enters Xinjiang in western China).
• Significance: China gets overland gas without needing sea routes. Turkmenistan becomes less dependent on routes through Russia.

9. Pipelines planned to reach India

• Iran–Pakistan–India (IPI) pipeline:
• Source: Iran's South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf.
• Length: NCERT says it "would be the longest in the world".
• India's exit: India left the talks around 2009. The reasons were security (the pipe would cross unstable parts of Pakistan, including Balochistan) and gas pricing.

• Status: Pakistan's section is still unbuilt. The project's status keeps changing, so check the latest news.

• TAPI pipeline (Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India):

• Source: Turkmenistan's Galkynysh gas field.
• Route: Herat and Kandahar (Afghanistan) → Multan (Pakistan) → Fazilka (Punjab, India).
• Length: about 1,800 km.
• Start of work: formally launched in December 2015 in Turkmenistan. India's Vice President attended and called it a first step towards an economically connected region [5].
• Status: it is stalled by insecurity, mainly in Afghanistan. The status keeps changing, so check the latest news.

Pipeline	Carries	From	Via	To	Status
Big Inch (1942–43)	Petroleum	Texas / Gulf of Mexico oilfields	—	North-eastern USA	Built
Central Asia–China	Natural gas	Turkmenistan	Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan	China	Working since 2009
IPI	Natural gas	Iran (South Pars)	Pakistan	India	India left around 2009; Pakistan's part unbuilt
TAPI	Natural gas	Turkmenistan (Galkynysh)	Herat, Kandahar, Multan	Fazilka (Punjab)	Launched 2015; stalled
India–Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline	High Speed Diesel	Siliguri (West Bengal)	—	Parbatipur (Bangladesh)	Working since 2023

10. Pipelines as geopolitics (beyond NCERT)

• Why pipelines are political: a pipeline ties the supplier and the buyer together for decades. Whoever controls the route can use it for pressure.
• Nord Stream:
• Route: under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.
• 2022: the pipelines were damaged by sabotage, during the Russia–Ukraine war.

• Result: Europe moved away from Russian pipeline gas towards LNG (liquefied natural gas brought by ship).

• Power of Siberia:

• Route: from eastern Siberia to China.
• Significance: Russia turned its gas exports towards Asia.

11. India's pipelines (pointer: energy-resources-india)

• National Gas Grid ("One Nation One Gas Grid"):
• Operational length: 24,945 km as on 30 September 2024, up from 15,340 km in 2014 [7].
• Authorised network: by June 2025, PNGRB had authorised about 34,233 km. Of this, 25,429 km was working and 10,459 km was under construction [8]. PNGRB is the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board.

• Aim: link all major gas supply and demand centres in India [8].

• India–Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline (IBFP):

• Opened: inaugurated in virtual mode on 18 March 2023 [4].
• First of its kind: it is the first cross-border energy pipeline between the two countries [4].
• Length and route: about 130 km, from the Siliguri Marketing Terminal of Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (West Bengal) to the Parbatipur depot in northern Bangladesh [4].
• Capacity: 1 million tonnes a year of High Speed Diesel [4].
• Cost: ₹377 crore in total. India paid the ₹285 crore cost of the Bangladesh section as grant aid [4].

Prelims Hooks

• Big Inch pipeline carries petroleum (not gas) from the Texas / Gulf of Mexico oilfields to the north-eastern USA (1942–43).
• New Zealand pipes milk from farms to factories. This is a classic "unusual pipeline cargo" question.
• About 17% of US freight tonne-km moves by pipeline (NCERT). NCERT also says the USA has 60% of the world's airways.
• Inter-continental air routes form an east–west belt in the Northern Hemisphere. They are densest over the eastern USA, Western Europe and Southeast Asia.
• The Southern Hemisphere between 10° and 35° has few air services because of sparse population, limited land and low development.
• Central Asia–China gas pipeline order, from west to east: Turkmenistan → Uzbekistan → Kazakhstan → China (since 2009).
• TAPI order, from source to India: Galkynysh → Herat → Kandahar → Multan → Fazilka (Punjab). Trap: TAPI's Indian end is in Punjab, not Rajasthan or Gujarat.
• IPI starts at Iran's South Pars field. TAPI starts at Turkmenistan's Galkynysh field. Do not swap them.
• India–Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline (2023) carries High Speed Diesel, not gas, from Siliguri to Parbatipur. It is the first cross-border energy pipeline between the two countries [4].
• CORSIA is run by ICAO, not UNFCCC. It aims at carbon-neutral growth from 2020 for international flights only, over 2021–2035 [6].

Mains Points

• Why air traffic is uneven (GS-I):
• Flights cluster in the rich, crowded Northern Hemisphere: the eastern USA, Western Europe and East and Southeast Asia.
• Africa, Siberia, South America and the southern oceans lag behind. Few people, little land and low incomes make airports there uneconomic.

• Gulf hubs (Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi) are changing this map by using the hub-and-spoke model at the Old World's centre.

• Air connectivity as development (GS-III):

• Air transport reaches places that roads and railways cannot: the Himalayas, the North-East, islands, and the Arctic Inuit settlements in Canada.
• India's UDAN and Modified UDAN (₹28,840 crore, 100 new airports, FY 2026–27 to FY 2035–36) bring regional connectivity [2].

• This growth must be balanced against aviation emissions, which CORSIA addresses for international flights [6].

• Pipeline geopolitics (GS-II/III):

• Pipelines lock countries into long-term dependence. Nord Stream (sabotaged 2022) and Power of Siberia show this.
• India's overland gas imports (IPI, TAPI) have stalled because of insecurity in Pakistan and Afghanistan and disputes over price.

• So India relies on LNG imports by sea and a domestic National Gas Grid: 25,429 km working by June 2025 [8].

• Pipelines in energy diplomacy (GS-III):

• Small cross-border pipelines can build regional energy security and goodwill. One example is the India–Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline (2023), which supplies diesel to seven districts of northern Bangladesh [4].
• Pipelines have low running costs and a steady flow. But they need a high starting investment, cannot change route, and are open to sabotage.