Ahmedabad airport to be made world class before CWG, works to begin soon: Ram Mohan Naidu

On the need to develop the aviation sector in directions other than conventional flights and the importance of the leasing and financing industry to support it, Naidu said, “The biggest issue in Indian aviation is the lack of aircraft in the country. The number of airports has gone up from 74 to 165. There’s a second airport in Delhi and Mumbai, and second airports are under discussion for Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata. Airports are coming up in tier 2 and 3 cities but there aren’t many aircraft. We need to bring aircraft and that’s why we are boosting the leasing industry. And not just wide body aircraft, we also want to promote helicopters, seaplanes, and cargo aircraft.”

Announcing plans to begin the first seaplane flight service between Kochi in Kerala and the Lakshadweep islands, he mentioned about a failed such project in Gujarat.

“We have solved many problems in the seaplane industry and we are going to start flights between Kochi and Lakshadweep in two weeks. Earlier there was an attempt in Kevadia. Air connectivity through seaplanes can come up anywhere where there is a large enough body of water, not just to the islands,” he said.

A seaplane service between Sabarmati Riverfront (Ahmedabad) and Statue of Unity (Kevadia) was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 31, 2020. However, operations ceased within just six months in April 2021.

Aircraft leasing

On the aircraft leasing and financing sector, the minister said that in the past decade, till December 2025, 38 registered aircraft lessors had leased 370 assets valued at $5.8 billion. Of this, $615 million of aviation financing had happened through IFSC (Indian Financial System Code) banking institutions.

Naidu said, “Aircraft leasing is a very important subject in civil aviation. Nearly 85% of aircraft in our (Indian) scheduled fleet are leased by airlines and not owned by them. We want to ensure leasing happens in India and especially in GIFT City. We had taken feedback in the last summit and we converted it to policy initiatives. We ratified the Cape Town Convention through an act of Parliament. Our compliance score for leasing went up because of it and the industry was aided by tax holidays.”

Resultantly, the union minister said, several MoUs have been signed recently. “Air India will lease 75 aircraft from lessors at Gift City. For Indigo, in the next year, this will be 150 aircraft. Star Air, a small player, will lease 6-8 Embraer aircraft from lessors at Gift City. Akasa Air will lease 60 aircraft from here. Apart from Dublin, Singapore and UAE, India will also become an aircraft leasing hub,” said Naidu.

On the initiatives of the government in the aviation sector, Naidu said, “The UDAN scheme was earmarked for 10 years. We are renewing it for another 10 years with Rs 29,000 crore to be invested by the GoI with 100 new airports, 200 new heliports planned, especially in north eastern states. The GoI is backing the sector. Industry should take the initiative. Our domestic aviation is already the third largest in the world. We want to make the entire Indian aviation sector third in the world.”