Tag Archives: Hardeep Singh Puri

Hardeep Sing Puri, Minister, Civil Aviation, has announced that they will be starting flights on one-thirds of the routes approved in the summer schedule of 2020 from May 25. The minimum and maximum fares for all the flights on these routes will be capped depending on the duration of the flight, which is divided into seven bands. He shared that the fare for the busiest route Delhi-Mumbai would be between Rs. 3500-Rs 10,000 and there will be three buckets in which seats will be allocated by the airline where they cannot exceed the prices in the first bucket by more than half of the price range of the rate capping.

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, has announced that domestic civil aviation operations will resume from 25th May and it would happen in a phased and calibrated manner. The passengers would have to follow strict social distancing, while airports across the country are working towards maintaining optimum 6 feet distance and minimum touch points for passengers. In a tweet, he said, “Domestic civil aviation operations will recommence in a calibrated manner from Monday 25th May 2020. All airports & Air carriers are being informed to be ready for operations from 25th May. SOPs for passenger movement are also being issued by MoCA.”

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, has said that the ministry, with all its divisions, including the Airports Authority of India and DGCA, is ready to resume domestic operations for the last one week, but they are still waiting for approval from some of the states for the same. He added that once they get approval, they will start operations in 2-3 days after that, and it could happen before the lockdown gets over. In a tweet, Puri said, “It is not up to MoCA or centre alone to decide to resume domestic flights. In the spirit of cooperative federalism, the govt of states where these flights will take off & land should be ready to allow civil aviation operations.”  

Airports Authority of India (AAI) is readying to invest more than Rs.25,000 crores in airport infrastructure, says Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State(I/C) for Civil aviation. “India, being the third largest domestic civil aviation market in the world and showing a robust growth, is poised for greater heights. With the kind of fleet expansion underway, India will soon have about 2000 civil aviation aircrafts in the sky, we will be doubling the number of airports with Airports Authority of India (AAI) readying to invest more than Rs.25,000 crores in Airport infrastructure and we have a structured privatisation program in place,” he said.

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), has said that MoCA will be issuing expression of interest for Air India disinvestment within next few weeks. Talking about Air India disinvestment, he revealed, “Air India is a national asset and the Maharaja is a great brand. The problem with Air India is that it has an unsustainable debt. We tried two years ago for the same, which proved to be less successful, and we have learnt from the same. It is our endeavour now that we will be issuing an expression of interest in the coming few weeks, hopefully sooner or later, and that the process of privatisation will then follow. We should ensure that we find a buyer and we have to deal with an interim process,” he said.

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (I/C) for Civil Aviation has launched the Biometric enabled Centralised Access Control System (CACS) and e-BCAS Project Training Module. The two projects launched are important milestones to enhance security and ease of doing business at airports. Covering 43 Airports of AAI and 5 Joint Venture airports at present, the CACS project is aimed to digitise the employee movement process at the airports. The e-BCAS Project: Training Module is aimed at helping more than 1.5 lac employees of various stakeholders by migrating from manual process of training to digital platform. Puri said “CACS project shall facilitate the ease of processing, enhanced security and prevent unauthorized entry into airport, alert authorities to an attempted intrusion or other irregularities for an immediate response; overall not only leading to ease of doing business, but also an enhanced security system.” CACS project is bound to assist around 2 Lakhs employees of various stakeholders who move in & out of the airport on a daily basis, he added.

To facilitate employment for Jet Airways’ staff, the government will launch a dedicated web portal. Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister, Civil Aviation, informed that a website would be launched listing staff of Jet Airways and help find employment in other private entities, while addressing the Rajya Sabha on the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill, 2019. “Every employee would be listed there and the prospects for their re-employment or employment will be facilitated by the government,” he said.  The Minister, however, said that government cannot assume responsibility for a business failure conducted by a private party. Referring to Jet Airways, Puri said he was sensitive to (business) failure and willing to see what can be done within the governmental system to cushion that failure.