Tag Archives: UDAN

The proposed international airport at Jewar in Greater Noida will not only bring places in Uttar Pradesh such as Kanpur and Allahabad closer to NCR under the regional connectivity scheme UDAN, it will also benefit locations in neighbouring states, a techno-economic feasibility report for the airport has stated. The Uttar Pradesh government is of the view that once the airport begins functioning from 2022-23, people travelling by air in the state will increase significantly. Air traffic in Uttar Pradesh is currently growing at a rate of 28.8 per cent. The PwC report stated that when the airport starts functioning, Shimla, Ludhinana, Pathankot, Gwalior and Adampur would be benefitted by it. These places, including Bhatinda would be benefitted by both the Jewar airport and the IGI airport in New Delhi under the Centres UDAN scheme. The capacity deployment to Kanpur and Adampur at present remains the highest. It said 88 per cent of Jewar airport traffic would be domestic and the rest international, adding that adjoining districts of Uttar Pradesh such as Agra and Gautam Budh Nagar would be the main contributors to the fliers volume to the airport. The report said the demand for air travel from the Dellhi-NCR region will increase manifold in the coming years and it will be determined by factors such as “natural growth in air travel demand due to economic progress and model shift from railways to air”. Source: PTI  

SpiceJet will soon connect Assam’s northern district of Lakhimpur with Jorhat in the south, announced Ajay Singh, Chief Managing Director, SpiceJet at Advantage Assam-Global Investors Summit’18 in Guwahati. The move will, if it comes through, form part of Centre’s UDAN or Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), an initiative taken to make air travel to India’s Tier-II and III cities affordable and at the same time putting remote regions on the country’s aviation map. “For India to grow, it is critical that North East grows. And, the region cannot grow without connectivity. SpiceJet connects cities of Guwahati, Silchar and Dibrugarh to other parts of the country and under UDAN, we will soon be connecting Lakhimpur and Jorhat,” Singh said. The two-day event showcased the state’s manufacturing opportunities and geostrategic advantages to foreign and domestic investors. The summit was organised by the Assam Government, in association with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). There were a number of focus sectors identified by the state, which includes agriculture and food processing, organic farming, bamboo, handloom, textile and handicrafts, inland water transport, riverfront development and logistics. Source:ANI 

The tourism and hospitality sectors had to listen intently to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Union Budget 2018 speech for a mention, which was made precisely three times. The Finance Minister proposed to develop 10 prominent tourist sites into ‘Iconic Tourism destinations’ by following a holistic approach involving infrastructure and skill development, development of technology, attracting private investment, branding and marketing. “To preserve and revitalise soul of the heritage cities in India, National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) has been taken up in a major way,” the minister said. In addition, to enhance visitor experience, tourist amenities at 100 Adarsh monuments of the Archaeological Survey of India will be upgraded. For promoting tourism and emergency medical care, Government will make necessary framework for encouraging investment in sea plane activities, Jaitley mentioned. The Minister noted that in the last three years, the domestic air passenger traffic grew at 18 per cent per annum and airline companies placed orders for more than 900 aircraft. Regional Connectivity Scheme of UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) initiated by the Government last year shall connect 56 unserved airports and 31 unserved helipads across the country, he said, adding that operations have already started at 16 such airports. “We propose to expand our airport capacity more than five times to handle a billion trips a year under a new initiative – NABH Nirman,” he said. For the Railways sector, “We are in a process of eliminating unmanned railway crossings. All railway stations having more than 25,000 footfall will have escalators. We are also working to provide Wi-Fi and CCTV Cameras on all trains and stations,” Jaitley said. Redevelopment of 600 major railway stations has been …

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has six key initiatives underway, said Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation. Addressing a gathering at CAPA Conference in Mumbai via a video link, the minister opted to answer questions from the audience instead of giving a speech. As part of a response, he outlined six key initiatives that India has undertaken. “There is no other country in the world that has undertaken such pathbreaking projects in the last four years as we have. Apart from the privatisation of our national carrier, UDAN and country-wide up gradation of airport infrastructure, we are also working on our passenger-centric measures via Air Seva initiative, dramatic breakthrough in the security architecture of our airports and last but not the least, a drone policy that will change the landscape as far as drone services are concerned. This has not been spoken about much but it will make India a world leader in drone services,” Sinha pointed out.

Air Deccan is all set to start flight operations under the regional connectivity scheme, also known as Udan (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik), from December 15 this year,Shillong airport officials reportedly said. Air Deccan will use Shillong as a hub and Udan flights from there will connect to other destinations in the northeast such as Agartala, Aizawl and Imphal, according to a top official of the Shillong airport. The airline will also operate flights between Kolkata and Agartala. Under the government’s Udan regional connectivity scheme, air fares are capped at Rs 2,500 per person for an hour’s flight to Tier-II and Tier-III cities in which the government will provide subsidy for flying with such low fares. “Air Deccan authorities have given the schedule saying that they would start operating from December 15 this year,” said M.K. Nayak, the director of Shillong airport. Air Deccan will use an 18-20 seater aircraft for the Udan flights, he added. Source: PTI

SpiceJet has announced its third daily direct flight on the UDAN routes of Hyderabad-Puducherry, starting August 16, 2017. After the new flight, Puducherry will be connected with Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Tirupati, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Vijaywada and Varanasi with convenient onward connections. SpiceJet was awarded six proposals and 11 routes in the first phase of Ministry of Civil Aviation’s UDAN scheme. Out of the six finalised proposals, four will cater to the unserved markets of Adampur, Kandla, Puducherry and Jaisalmer, and the other two will be for the underserved markets of Porbandar and Kanpur. Flights have already started on Mumbai-Porbandar-Mumbai and Mumbai-Kandla-Mumbai routes from July 10.

Air India is all set to start new flights not only under government’s Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) scheme, but non-UDAN flights as well to strengthen its domestic network. Ashwani Lohani, CMD, Air India, informs, “We will be starting flights under UDAN to Pathankot and Ludhiana. There will be non UDAN flights as well, and we will be starting new flights from Lucknow from June 25 on Lucknow-Jaipur, Lucknow-Dehradun and Lucknow-Bhopal routes. In South India, we will be putting an airplane in Bengaluru this month, which would be flying to Coimbatore, Chennai and Madurai.”

The Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) Regional Connectivity Scheme, in its second phase starting in August, would help link smaller towns with bigger cities, revealed R.N. Choubey, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation. He said, “There are various routes like Lucknow-Varanasi, where there is no connectivity. During the second phase, we are expanding the scheme to unserved routes too. We have not decided on the number of unserved routes and we would like to leave it to the market and the airlines to decide on it. These routes, however, do not necessarily have to be between two unserved airports and could be between two well-connected airports too.” The ministry also proposed more changes, which include reductions in the minimum distance for an RCS flight to below 150 km, and the number of years of exclusivity to one from three years in the first phase.

SpiceJet, Alliance Air, and three other airlines have emerged winner in the first round of bidding and 43 airports in India are set to get flights under the Regional Connectivity Scheme, revealed Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Civil Aviation Minister, Govt. of India. Apart from SpiceJet and Alliance Air, the other three airlines awaiting license include Air Deccan, Air Odisha and Turbo Megha. Airports Authority of India (AAI), the implementing agency, will issue Letter of Awards for 27 proposals received under RCS-UDAN. A total of 13 unserved airports will get flights under the scheme, and the total viability gap funding that the government will provide will be around Rs. 200 crore. Raju also said that the total seats on these routes will be around 13 lakh and the scheme will be active in the next 4-6 months.

To give a boost to the Civil Aviation Operators, the Government of Delhi has proposed to reduce the VAT rate to 1 per cent from existing 25 per cent on their purchases of Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) in Delhi. Revealing this in Budget for 2017-18, Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said those who have opted to operate under Regional Connectivity Scheme i.e. RCS (Udan) and will ply the fights on RCS routes (involving Delhi) between an identified pair of origin and destination airports/helipads can benefit from this tax cut.