Shimla may soon get air connectivity after the Centre told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it was open to amend the existing Route Dispensation Guidelines under which Shimla could be included as a mandatory route for running scheduled flights connecting major cities.
The bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice UU lalit allowed the Centre three weeks to amend the policy and get back with a solution to ensure citizens get to visit the popular hill station Shimla with ease.
Explaining why Shimla airport has failed to attract traffic from scheduled airlines, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) PS Patwalia said that under the route dispensation guidelines (RPG) an airline is supposed to flow maximum traffic on lucrative destinations involving metropolitan cities. In addition, they have to mandatorily run flights connecting J&K, Andaman and Nicobar, North East and lakshadweep. The last category of routes comprises rest of india routes on which the airline operators have to allocate 10 per cent.
The bench told Patwalia to include Shimla under Category 2 so that airline companies are obliged to run planes on this route. “If you put it in the policy, we will ensure they comply with it or else we can cancel some lucrative Mumbai routes,” said the bench. The bench even directed Civil Aviation Ministry to file an affidavit giving an account on whether the RPG is being strictly implemented by airline operators. The matter has been posted for hearing on April 12.