New Delhi: Over 1 crore Indians became first time fliers due to the government's UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) scheme, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said in Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Scindia, replying to questions during the Zero Hour, said that that nearly 1.15 crore Indians, who had previously never boarded a flight before experienced their maiden flight due to the UDAN scheme since its inception in 2016.
He also said that currently 11 airlines including three startups are involved in the UDAN scheme adding that 70 new airports have been set up in the country. "Apart from these we are going to establish 68 new airports by the end of 2024 towards diversification of civil aviation sector," said Scindia.
UDAN was launched by the Civil Aviation Ministry as a Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) on October 21, 2016 with the objective of boosting regional air connectivity and making air travel affordable to the common people.
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"As on November 30, 2022, after four rounds of bidding under UDAN, 453 routes have commenced, operationalizing 70 airports, including 2 water aerodrome and 9 heliports. More than 2.15 lakh UDAN flights have operated and over 1.1 crore passengers have availed the benefits in UDAN flights so far. The scheme has been able to provide air connectivity to Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities at affordable airfares and has transformed the way people travel," said Scindia.
"The government has set a target to operationalise 1,000 UDAN routes during the currency of the scheme and to revive/develop 100 unserved and underserved airports/ heliports/water aerodromes by 2024. The government of India has approved a budget of Rs 4,500 crore for revival of existing unserved/underserved airports/airstrips of the state governments, Airports Authority of India, public sector undertakings and civil enclaves," he added. The UDAN scheme is applicable for a period of 10 years from the date of its notification.
Replying to supplementaries Scindia said that the aviation has "crests and troughs" and air ticket pricing depends on seasons but passengers can benefit from booking in advance. The minister also said that Amritsar and Chandigarh together have 42 air traffic movements internationally, including 33 in Amritsar and nine in Chandigarh, and expressed confidence that whenever Indian carriers will expand, Punjab will be a very key element of that.
As for high ticket pricing especially during the festive season, the minister said it is extremely important to understand that the civil aviation sector is a seasonal industry. "There are crests and there are troughs. When festive season starts in October all the way up to February is the high season of civil aviation and you then get into a little bit of a medium lull situation and then the trough, which is the monsoon season is really a wipeout season in terms of civil aviation...Because of seasonality factors there will be pricing differences," the minister told the House during Question Hour.
He said one also has to understand that the sector has gone through possibly the worst time for any industry in the world during Covid. "It was the only industry where our planes were on the tarmac for almost 18 to 24 months and the very fact that we have experienced a V-shaped recovery speaks great volumes of the resoluteness of our carriers and the capability to supply that service to the common man," the minister said.
The Air Turbine fuel (ATF), which is a very important ingredient as a raw material and almost close to about 50 percent of the carrier's cost structure, has gone up from from pre-Covid between Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000 a Kilolitre to today's level of Rs 1,17,000 a kilolitre, he noted. "There has been an almost 2.5 times jump in terms of the main raw material cost in the cost structure, which comprises almost 50 percent. That too has an effect on fares.
"The civil aviation sector functions on what is called the Reservation Booking Designator (RBD), where if you book very far in advance you will get very low fares and as the plane gets filling up the fare is certain to go up and that is an international practice that is followed all across the globe," the minister informed members. Scindia also hit out at previous governments for being liberal in terms of signing air traffic agreements and giving multiple points of call to neighbours.
