AAI cancels Air Odisha’s UDAN license for poor performance

Last month, the Civil Aviation Ministry had issued a show cause notice to the airline operator. (Representational Image)

The Airport Authority of India has served a termination clause to Air Odisha for failing to operate 70 per cent of its scheduled flights over the last three months, as per the Director of Biju Patnaik International Airport (Bhubaneswar) Suresh Chandra Hota on Friday. “AAI has sent them (Air Odisha) a letter which includes Clause 17 (termination clause) because they have failed to operate 70 per cent of their scheduled flights over the last three months”, Hota said to the press, adding, “If they can avail legal options, so can we”.

Last month, the Civil Aviation Ministry had issued a show cause notice to the airline operator. The ministry’s Twitter account stated: “Jharsuguda Airport is a full fledged functional airport and available for all domestic scheduled & non-scheduled operations. The selected Airline under UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) has been issued with showcause for discontinuing their operations quoting technical reasons. Non commencement within prescribed period would lead for cancellation of current award. Routes would be opened for bidding & allocated to eligible Airlines for better connectivity.”

Explained

First red mark on regional connectivity push

For a scheme that proposed to bring a number of unconnected and under-connected towns on the aviation map of India, cancellation of one of the biggest participants of the Centre’s flagship UDAN plan for regional connectivity is the first red mark in the scheme’s book. Between the launch of the scheme in April 2017 and September 2018, a cumulative 15,723 flights were flown but Air Odisha’s share in this was only 641 flights. Further, despite winning rights to fly on 50 routes, the most out of 128 awarded in the first edition of UDAN scheme, Air Odisha only operated on 12 of them. Further, on the routes that it operated, Air Odisha clocked average passenger load factors in the range between 9 per cent and 39 per cent on its 19-seater aircraft.

Air Odisha, the sole operator in Jharsuguda airport, has been facing complaints after failing to operate flights as per schedule and for cancelling flights without informing passengers, Airport Director S K Chauhan had told The Indian Express. Inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September, the Veer Surendra Sai airport in Jharsuguda district is expected to boost investment and development in western Odisha.

“It is unfortunate that the airline had some problems. Otherwise Jharsuguda’s catchment area (for air traffic) is quite large. There is no problem in operating flights out of Jharsuguda, the gateway to western Odisha”, Hota said. “The last flight from the airport by Air Odisha was on October 06,” said Airport Director S K Chauhan had said, adding that he brought the matter to the notice of the DGCA. According to data released by the DGCA, Air Odisha accounted for the second highest number of cancellations among all domestic operators consecutively from June to August. The operator’s cancellation rate in July was 94.23 per cent.