In order to connect the country’s under-served and unserved airports under the Centre’s Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), five airlines, have won bids to operate on 128 routes. The routes will connect 70 airports, including 31 unserved and 12 under-served ones under the scheme — also known as UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik). On each flight, 50 per cent of the seats are capped at Rs 2,500 per seat for one-hour travel. The first flight under UDAN is expected to start next month, said Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey.
Under UDAN, the operators would be extended viability gap funding — for which money is partly raised through a levy of up to Rs 8,500 on flights operating in major routes like Delhi and Mumbai. The viability gap funding amount is estimated to be around Rs 205 crore per annum for the operators chosen in the first round of bidding, Choubey said. When asked how the amount of Rs 205 crore could translate to in terms of increased price on fliers on the major routes where the levy is imposed, Choubey said it would be around “Rs 50 per passenger."
Read more of this in The Indian Express....
