Government hopes to have first flight under UDAN scheme as early as February and cities such as Jaisalmer and Bikaner in Rajasthan, Jalgaon in Maharashtra, ludhiana in Punjab, and Shimla in Himachal may see flights soon with fares capped at Rs 2,500 for one-hour flights.
“Government hopes to have the first flight under UDAN in February as several airports like in Jaisalmer and Bikaner in Rajasthan, Cooch Behar in West Bengal, ludhiana in Punjab, Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, Pantnagar in Uttarakhand are ready to fly, to name a few,” said Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha while taking about bids under RCS routes.
Terming UDAN as a game changer and a step change in Indian aviation, Sinha said AAI has received 43 initial proposals from 11 bidders for 190 routes under the scheme.
“We have 75 operational airports currently in the country. Through the bids that we have received for UDAN, it appears that we will now have 43 new airports that will be joining our aviation network. So now 118 airports are going to be operational once UDAN gets implemented next month or so,” Sinha added.
UDAN schemer is mainly aimed at connecting unserved and under-served airports. Unserved airports are the one where there is no flight operations whereas the underserved airports have been catagorised as the ones which have three or less flight per week.
According to the Civil Aviation Ministry, Maharashtra has the highest number of unserved airports at 19, followed by Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh at 11 each.
Similarly, West Bengal and Karnataka have seven such airports each which do not have one single flight operations.
The bids for the routes would be finalised by February 3, he informed.
When asked to name bidders, Sinha refused naming them saying we are inviting counter bids at this stage and once the counter bids come, the bidders may change, the routes may change as well.
But he added that UDAN will massively expand country’s aviation network as it will connect mostly TIER II cities and large national airlines will get benefitted as they would have more traffic coming into important hub airports.
He also said that this is the first round of biddings and Government has seen enouraging response from participants and as the UDAN scheme gets matured there will be further biddings and more flights.
UDAN will be based on market mechanism as well as bidding for a minimum of 50 per cent seats in the participating airline’s flight and the rest would be market-based pricing.
While the deadline for submitting initial proposals ended on January 16, the counter bids for them can be submitted till February 1. After that, the routes would be awarded to bidders who quote the lowest Viability Gap Funding (VGF) requirement against the routes.
Under UDAN, the participating airlines would be extended VGF -- that would be jointly funded by the Centre and the State Government concerned.
Towards VGF, the Government has started charging Rs 8,500 levy per departure of flights on major routes. However, airlines have challenged the charging of levy in the court.
He said the Government has already received “some of the funds” in the RCS and that Government is expecting cooperation from other airlines to participate in that.
Sinha also said the Ministry is in discussions with the airlines over levy issue, adding that, “we have sought their support as it (UDAN) is in the interest of all, including the consumers and airlines.