Air Traffic: As UDAN spreads wings, hopes of a better coverage rise

Airlines operating RCS flights will sell 50 per cent of the tickets at price not exceeding Rs 2,500 for a one hour flights, while for the remaining 50 per cent seats they are allowed charge market prices.

This is also expected to lead to adequate utilisation of the airport infrastructure as 31 unserved airports and 12 under-served airports will get connected through regular flights in the next few months. Flights to some of the routes are expected to start by the end of this month, while all the routes that have been awarded will be covered by September. Airlines including Trujet (owned by Turbo Megha Airways), SpiceJet, Air Deccan, Air Odisha and Air India subsidiary Alliance Air, won bids to operate on the routes that will connect 70 airports, including 31 unserved and 12 under-served ones under the UDAN scheme, which is an acronym for Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik.

“By the end of this month, we are planning to start flights from Nanded to Hyderabad and Nanded to Mumbai. These are one hour flights, so half of the seats on these flights will cost Rs 2,500 per ticket while for the rest half of the seats we have the choice to charge the same or more per seat. We have won bids for a total of 18 flights and hope to commence operations on these in 2-3 months,” said Trujet managing director Vankayalapati Umesh told The Indian Express.

A one-hour journey on a fixed wing aircraft roughly covers about 500 km, which would normally take more than 8 hours to cover similar distance by rail.

The regional airline will be using the twin-engine turboprop short-haul regional aircraft ATR 72-500 for these operations. “The scheme will be good for the passengers. It should be commercially viable if we are able to fill 70-80 per cent of the seats. Once we start operations we will also get to know how the government supports us and what is the response of the air travellers,” he said. Air India subsidiary Alliance Air, which won bids for 15 routes, plans to start its Bathinda-Delhi service by the end of this month. Ludhiana-Delhi, Shimla-Delhi, Agra-Jaipur, Bikaner-Delhi and Gwalior-Delhi are among other routes on which Alliance Air will fly.

Low cost carrier SpiceJet, which won bids for 11 RCS routes, believes that these routes will be commercially viable. It did not seek any subsidy from the government as it believes concession in airport charges and on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) for RCS flights will make the operations viable. The airline has 17 Bombardier Q400 aircraft with a seating capacity of 78. It will operate flights on the routes of Adampur-Delhi, Kandla-Mumbai, Pondicherry-Hyderabad, Mumbai-Porbandar, Jaisalmer-Jaipur and Kanpur-Delhi.

Under the UDAN scheme, the government is providing viability gap funding (VGF) to airlines to ensure that 50 per cent of the seats are sold at air fares not crossing Rs 2,500 for one hour flight. Apart from the VGF, the airlines are being given a host of other benefits — such as exemption from landing, parking charges at RCS airports, only 1 per cent tax on ATF and three-year exclusivity to the airline which has won the bid for a particular route. The benefits are being given to make the scheme commercially viable and scalable.

The civil aviation ministry will hold periodical rounds of bidding for new unconnected routes in the next few months, government officials said. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said last week that the efficiency and design of the scheme allowed it to enhance air traffic capacity at a very low cost. “The total VGF that is going to be required for these 43 airports is only Rs 205 crore (per year amount for the first bidding round). For Rs 205 crore, we have created a regional aviation market of 1.3 million/13 lakh seats or more,” Sinha said. The VGF that will be given for the RCS routes is being funded through a small levy — of about Rs 50 per ticket — on departure flights on major routes.

The seating capacity proposed by the airlines under the RCS range from 19 to 78 seater. Air Deccan, which won a total of 34 routes, plans to operate 18-19 seater plans to connect remote areas including Kolkata-Burnpur, Kolkata-Cooch Behar, Bagdogra-Durgapur, Kolkata-Jamshedpur, Kolkata-Rourkela, Shillong from various cities in the north east such as Agartala, Aizwal, Dimapur, Imphal and Silchar. Mumbai-Kolhapur, Mumbai-Jalgaon, Mumbai-Nashik, Pune-Nashik, Mumbai-Sholapur, Dehradun-Pantnagar and Delhi-Pantnagar are the other routes where the carrier plans to fly.

Air Odisha Aviation is the fifth company that has won the rights to fly on a maximum number of 50 routes including Gwalior-Delhi, Gwalior-Lucknow, Bhavnagar to Ahmedabad and Surat, Diu- Ahmedabad, Jamnagar-Ahmedabad, Mundra-Ahmedabad, Puducherry to Chennai and Salem, Jagdalpur to Raipur and Vishakhapatnam, among others.