Gujarat to resume seaplane ride to Statue of Unity with amphibious aircraft

Gujarat Director for Civil Aviation and CEO of GUJSAIL, Captain Ajay Chauhan confirmed that MEHAIR is in the process of importing a pre-owned Cessna Grand Caravan 208 amphibious aircraft. MEHAIR will operate the aircraft under the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) scheme of the Gujarat government instead of the RCS-UDAN scheme of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, which launched the service through SpiceJet in 2020.

Officials confirmed that MEHAIR, under VGF, will operate only two nine-seater flights per day — one onward and one return flight — between Sabarmati Riverfront and Dyke 3 of Sardar Sarovar Dam, near the Statue of Unity, to resume services.

Hareet Shukla, Secretary, Aviation, told The Sunday Express, “The services started in October 2020 could not be sustained although SpiceJet tried its best… Covid-19 pandemic had a major role to play in the failure of the seaplane service as the tourism industry was perpetually closed. Things are different now. We have also picked out reasons that caused the service to fail earlier and this time we are working out better viability for the project to sustain itself. We have not set a deadline but it will happen soon…”

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The seaplane service connecting Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad to Statue of Unity in Ekta Nagar in Narmada, had a rough ride during its operations from October 31, 2020, to April 10, 2021 — remaining suspended for 47 days due to maintenance requirements. In March this year, state Transport Minister Purnesh Modi replied to questions by Congress MLA Himmatsinh Patel from Bapunagar and admitted in the Assembly session that the project had seen a total spend of Rs 7.77 crore. While the government has not put a deadline for the resumption of the seaplane service, the website of the Statue of Unity states that the service was “to make a splash again in June 2022”.  The website also announced the opening of bookings for the service, each ticket costing Rs 4.800.

Chauhan said, “The letter of operations has been handed out to MEHAIR and they were given 120 days to procure the aircraft from the US. They are currently in the last phase of the procedure for procurement of a pre-owned Cessna Grand Caravan. Since procuring new amphibious aircraft are not manufactured in big numbers, we have approved the procurement of a pre-owned aircraft. We are expecting it to arrive in Gujarat by mid-August, following which, the formalities for the registration, technical acceptance, and flying tests by the DGCA will begin…”