Regional flights: Govt relaxes norms for 2nd round of Udan bidding

The Government hopes to announce the names of winners of the second round of bidding under the regional air connectivity scheme (RCS) by November 30.

Operators will be able to decide from about 350 airports and landing strips to operate RCS flights.

Under the scheme, an operator is entitled to receive funds from the Government in the form of viability gap funding (VGF) if a fixed number of seats on the flight are sold at fare of up to ₹2,500.

Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Union Civil Aviation Minister, told the media on Thursday that the Government has come up with additional concessions during the second round of bidding including doing away with the stipulation that two airports have to be 150 km away from each other to qualify for the ‘ Ude desh ka aam nagrik’ (UDAN) flights, especially in difficult and remote areas, and giving more sops to helicopters, including enhancing the VGF caps for them.

UDAN-2 defines the States of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, North Eastern region, Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands as priority areas. An operator flying from the priority areas will be allowed to operate 14 weekly departures from the same RCS airports and qualify for getting a VGF. For other routes, under the scheme the limit remains seven weekly flights.

To encourage helicopter operations, all 13 passenger seats for helicopters will be considered as RCS seats and VGF will be provided accordingly.

For fixed wing aircraft to qualify under RCS at least nine seats have to be priced at an all-inclusive fare of ₹2,500.

RN Choubey, Secretary, Civil Aviation, said that additional sops have been given to helicopters to give a boost to connectivity in priority areas.

While retaining the exclusivity clause, which allows only one operator to fly on a particular route for three years, the Ministry has proposed that select airline operators may issue no-objection certificate to other airline operator (s) willing to operate on the respective RCS route.

The government had unveiled its regional connectivity scheme in early July last year which caps airfares at ₹2,500 for a one-hour flight to unserved and under-served airports that are 476-500 km apart.

Commenting on the progress made in the first round of bidding under RCS, the Minister said that till September 21 unserved/underserved airports had been connected. He added thatthe first round of bidding under the UDAN scheme has been successful even though there was no significant capacity addition. “Before the second round of bidding a significant capacity addition will happen. Another 100 aircraft suitable for RCS orders have been placed,” Choubey added.

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