Ministry to unveil Vision 2040 for aviation sector at two-day global summit

The Union Ministry of Civil Aviation will shortly award new regional connectivity routes under UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagarik) III, Union Minister for Commerce, Industry & Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu said in Mumbai on Monday.

“Very soon, we will be declaring results for a very successful round in UDAN III. We will announce it formally in the next two days. The new routes will meet lot of unmet demand and futuristic requirement of people,” Mr. Prabhu said ahead of a two-day Global Aviation Summit.

“[In this round] We want to do something which is completely ready and fool-proof. In the past, some airlines that had bid and succeeded in bagging routes did not take off [from those routes]. We do not want to see a repeat of that kind. We want to make sure that UDAN is really flying,” the Minister added.

‘Starting’ trouble

He was referring to Air Odisha and Air Deccan which, despite bagging many regional connectivity routes, could not launch many flights due to lack of resources. The third round of bidding under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) for domestic routes concluded recently and 15 airlines had bid for a total 111 routes. These include a bulk of the 56 (RCS) routes withdrawn from Air Odisha and Air Deccan because of their inability to launch flights. The two airlines between them had 84 routes bagged by them in round one of UDAN

As the two airlines accounted for two-thirds of the total 128 routes bagged by five operators in round one, their inability to start these routes meant a setback for the scheme.

“We are connecting incredible, inaccessible parts of India. We are going ahead with more connectivity, and working with State governments. We are also coming out with a template of doing joint ventures with States for airport development,” he said.

He added that at the summit, the Ministry would unveil a Vision 2040 for the aviation sector. Delegates from about 86 countries are participating in this first-of-its-kind summit.