As the country registers a month-on-month recovery in domestic and international air traffic to pre-Covid levels, the union minister for civil aviation, Jyotiraditya Scindia has said that ramping up regional connectivity is the new focus area for the government.
“To facilitate the same, plans are afoot to promote regional airlines and the helicopter industry and simplify the procedures. A small aircraft scheme has also been rolled out to provide air connectivity to remote regions,” the minister said.
For instance, Indian carriers have launched flights on more than 400 regional routes, connecting 66 airports in the current summer schedule, under the Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik-Regional Connectivity Scheme (UDAN-RCS). This is the highest in the history of civil aviation in the country.
More than one crore people have availed benefit of the UDAN-RCS scheme since its launch in April 2017, according to government data.
The minister also said the industry’s growth would be further supported by developments in other segments such as flight training organisations (FTOs), cargo and drones.
Scindia gave this guidance during a discussion at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) on July 19.
The minster assured that more FTOs would be established to meet the growing demand for pilots. The country currently has 34 such institutes approved by the aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and this number would increase to 50 by 2034.
“It seems achievable with the abolition of airport royalty and rationalisation of land rentals under the new FTO policy,” he said.
Other focus areas
Citing data from FY13-14 to FY17-18, the minister said the air cargo segment would continue to register incremental growth.
“Air cargo in India has constantly seen an upward movement, even during Covid. While the number of [cargo] freighters increased from seven to 28, India’s market share has increased from 2 to 19 per cent,” the minister observed.
The minister was particularly bullish on the tremendous growth potential of the drone sector. He emphasised that this would be achieved through policy initiatives like the Productivity Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme and creating a demand for their applications across industries with help from other ministries.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is aggressively promoting the country’s budding drone sector to become a $30-billion industry by 2030.
The minister was equally upbeat on the ministry’s plans for decarbonisation of airport assets, a programme he had announced in March.
“The ministry is ambitiously pursuing the decarbonisation of 94 out of 110 airports owned by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) by 2024 to accomplish the net zero emission target,” he noted.
At the same time, the ministry was aggressively looking into encouraging the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by Indian carriers.
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