The Five airports will be connected to Mumbai Airport.
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| Kolhapur airport will see flights to Mumbai soon. Image source: Wikipedia |
The Government of India announced 45 new air routes awarded to airlines under the first round of its Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) for civil aviation, also known as UDAN – Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik. The scheme seeks to make flying more affordable.
The RCS will connect eight cities in the State of Maharashtra. Of these, five airports have not seen a commercial flight in years!
Under UDAN, the operators would be extended viability gap funding (VGF) in which 80 percent of the subsidy will be provided by the Central government and the remaining by the State Government. Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said that on each flight, 50% of the seats would have a cap of Rs 2,500 per seat/hour. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said the scheme provides for various benefits including no airport charges and three-year exclusivity on the routes.
Two operators have won bids to fly the intra-state routes. Hyderabad based Turbo-Megha Airways (parent company of TruJet Airlines) were awarded the Mumbai - Nanded route. Their aircraft will also connect Nanded with Hyderabad. The services are expected to begin by June 2017 and will depend on the preparedness of the airport and operator.
Bengaluru based Deccan Charters, promoted by Capt. Gopinath of Air Deccan fame, will operate on the following routes in Maharashtra.
Mumbai- Nashik- Pune
Mumbai- Aurangabad
Mumbai - Jalgaon
Mumbai - Kolhapur
Mumbai - Solapur
Deccan Charters are expected to commence by September 2017 depending on the preparedness of the airports. While Pune and Aurangabad airports are AAI owned airports that already have some services and are likely to require little or no preparation for these RCS flights, the same cannot be said for the other airports which have been lying idle for quite some time. While Jalgaon and Kolhapur are run by AAI, Solapur is run by the Maharashtra Airports Development Corporation (MADC) and Nashik (Ozar) is run by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL). These airports will now need to prepare their premises for receiving regular flights.
