The Ministry of Civil Aviation on Wednesday under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), also known as UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik), allotted 325 air routes to 15 airlines and helicopter service providers which will connect 73 new airports and helipads in tier 2 and 3 cities including Kargil in the frontier Ladakh region.
Announcing the result of second round of bidding under RCS (UDAN-2) the Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathy Raju said that it will be adding 29 lakh seats annually. He said that 11 fixed-wing operators have been granted rights for 67 routes and four helicopter operators have been awarded 23 routes.
States with maximum number of airports and helipads seeing activation under UDAN-2 are Uttarakhand (15), Uttar Pradesh (9), Arunachal Pradesh (8) and Himachal Pradesh (6) and Assam and Manipur (5 each), informed the minister.
Among the major domestic carriers, IndiGo has bagged 20 proposals, SpiceJet got 17 while Jet Airways won 4 proposals. The second round of UDAN is expected to connect 43 airports and helipads in “priority sector”, which includes the north-eastern and hill states, the official said.
The government will spend Rs 620 crore in providing viability gap funding or subsidy to airlines and helicopter operators for RCS flights. Under the first round of RCS, which concluded in March last year, total 128 routes were awarded to five airline operators, the official added.
“The passenger airfare for one hour journey of 500 km on a fixed wing aircraft or for a 30 minute journey on a helicopter would be capped at Rs 2,500, with proportionate pricing for routes of different stage lengths/flight duration. The selected airline operator would have to provide 50 percent of the flight capacity (subject to a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 40) as RCS seats for operations through fixed wing aircraft and a maximum of 13 RCS seats on the RCS flights for operations through helicopters,” officials said.
“Where the fixed wing aircraft has less than 9 passenger seats, then all such seats would be RCS seats. Selected Airline operator would be given a three years exclusivity of operations. To reduce the cost of operations of airlines on flying such routes, a financial stimulus in the form of concessions from Central and State government, airport operators and the Viability Gap Funding to the interested airlines would be provided to kick-off operations from such airports, so that the passenger fares are kept affordable,” said a statement issued by the Civil Aviation Ministry.