Civil aviation industry posts 19% growth in domestic passenger traffic -Governance Now

Civil aviation industry posts 19% growth in domestic passenger traffic

Jayant Sinha, minister of state for civil aviation, says that Air India has performed extremely well during the last three years

GN Bureau | May 31, 2017

#civil aviation #domestic air travel #Jayant Sinha

The civil aviation industry has registered a growth of 19 percent in domestic passenger traffic from about 6.1 crore in 2014 to 10 crore in 2016-17, making India the third largest aviation market globally.

Jayant Sinha, minister of state for civil aviation, said that the national carrier Air India has also performed extremely well during the last three years.

Ministry officials attributed regional connectivity scheme –UDAN, as a reason behind surge in the number of passengers and said the scheme has made air travel possible for even the common man in remote areas.

According to P Ashok Gajapathy Raju, union minister for civil aviation, the average airfares plummeted by 18 percent during the last fiscal. “Scheduled domestic flight movements have risen from 7 lakh in 2014 to 8.2 lakh in 2016, an 8.2 percent growth. As against 395 aircraft in the fleet of Indian carriers, there are 496 aircrafts in operation today, and another 654 are under purchase,” the minister said.

Raju highlighted other achievements of the ministry like promoting ease of doing business by allowing 100 percent FDI in domestic scheduled air transport, open skies service agreements offers to 49 countries and five SAARC nations etc., developing robust security architecture by complying with ICAO requirements and Anti Hijacking Act.

Jayant Sinha said as against 70-75 airports in the country in all these years, the ministry has now over 100 airports with the implementation of UDAN. “We hope to have 200 plus airports in the next 10-15 years. Capacity of existing major airports is also being increased rapidly, while Greenfield airports are coming up at Goa, Navi Mumbai and other places,” he said.

Comments

Other News

Five ways to realise the potential of India’s handicraft and handloom sector

India`s economic ambitions are increasingly defined by the industries of the future. Semiconductors, electronics, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing dominate policy conversations. Yet one of India`s largest employment-intensive sectors continues to occupy a surprisingly marginal place in ec

Beyond toilets: Why open defecation persists in rural India

Despite the awareness campaigns on sanitation across India, open defecation (OD) is practised openly and widely in both rural and urban areas. Research shows that rural respondents are well aware of the negative impacts of OD, yet this awareness does not lead to toilet construction or use. In rural North I

What unpaid nation builders want from policymakers

The Supreme Court recently described homemakers as “nation builders” and fixed a notional monthly income of Rs 30,000 for them in motor accident compensation cases. The judgment was not about wages. It was about compensation. Yet it inadvertently raised a larger economic question: If a homemake

What the US–Iran peace deal means for India

After months of rising tensions, the United States and Iran have reached a memorandum of understanding called the "Islamabad Agreement." This agreement allows for the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz without tolls and provides Iran with relief from sanctions, depending on its complianc

V. M. Tarkunde: A legal luminary par excellence

14 Lawyers: Portraits from The Bar By Raju Ramachandran Juggernaut, 248 pages, Rs. 799

The Cost of Obesity

The latest episode of Checks and Balances focuses on the ticking time bomb of obesity in India, and Geetanjali Minhas of Governance Now spoke with a panel of experts. You can watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/mH