For the first time in the history of Indian civil aviation, a policy document covering all aspects of civil aviation has been approved by the Cabinet.
The Ministry of Civil aviation has gone through an extensive consultation process with all stakeholders and the policy is a positive move and will benefit the passenger, along with the anticipated growth.
The National Civil Aviation Policy, 2016, keeps in mind the passenger and paves the way for long-term growth of the sector. If the 2015-16 fiscal saw 80 million domestic passengers, the target is to touch 300 million by 2022. The vision is to have a long-term policy which will achieve domestic passenger traffic of 500 million by 2027 and international traffic of 200 million. The document also emphasises on safe, secure and affordable air travel in the years to come.
The scrapping of 5/20 rule and making it a simple 0/20 is an excellent policy directive. This will enable Indian carriers – both low cost and full service airlines – to fly overseas and offer very competitive fares. This will also improve connectivity as most of the domestic airlines have a vast network across India. The domestic carriers will require wide-bodied aircraft to compete with the existing international carriers. This will make overseas travel affordable and simple as the connectivity issue will automatically get resolved. This will also enable passengers from all operating airports to fly overseas, and that too with less hassles.
The Indian carriers will now be free to enter into code-share agreements with foreign carriers for any destination within India on a reciprocal basis. International code-share agreements between Indian and foreign carriers will also be completely liberalised, subject to air services agreement, which India has with 109 countries spread across the world.
India has 132 airports supporting all operational facilities but the airlines are unable to fly to all the operating airports. If this is facilitated, it will lead to better connectivity, simply because they do not have sufficient load factors. Keeping this in mind, the government will promote the growth of scheduled commuter airlines (SCAs). The SCAs shall have aircraft with capacity of less than 100 seats. There will be no restrictions on the number of aircraft for operating an SCA but will only need to operate a minimum number of movements per week. This will enable activating several ghost airports which number to 25% of the operational airports, thus increasing connectivity.
03/07/16 Sudhakara Reddy D/Deccan Herald
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The Ministry of Civil aviation has gone through an extensive consultation process with all stakeholders and the policy is a positive move and will benefit the passenger, along with the anticipated growth.
The National Civil Aviation Policy, 2016, keeps in mind the passenger and paves the way for long-term growth of the sector. If the 2015-16 fiscal saw 80 million domestic passengers, the target is to touch 300 million by 2022. The vision is to have a long-term policy which will achieve domestic passenger traffic of 500 million by 2027 and international traffic of 200 million. The document also emphasises on safe, secure and affordable air travel in the years to come.
The scrapping of 5/20 rule and making it a simple 0/20 is an excellent policy directive. This will enable Indian carriers – both low cost and full service airlines – to fly overseas and offer very competitive fares. This will also improve connectivity as most of the domestic airlines have a vast network across India. The domestic carriers will require wide-bodied aircraft to compete with the existing international carriers. This will make overseas travel affordable and simple as the connectivity issue will automatically get resolved. This will also enable passengers from all operating airports to fly overseas, and that too with less hassles.
The Indian carriers will now be free to enter into code-share agreements with foreign carriers for any destination within India on a reciprocal basis. International code-share agreements between Indian and foreign carriers will also be completely liberalised, subject to air services agreement, which India has with 109 countries spread across the world.
India has 132 airports supporting all operational facilities but the airlines are unable to fly to all the operating airports. If this is facilitated, it will lead to better connectivity, simply because they do not have sufficient load factors. Keeping this in mind, the government will promote the growth of scheduled commuter airlines (SCAs). The SCAs shall have aircraft with capacity of less than 100 seats. There will be no restrictions on the number of aircraft for operating an SCA but will only need to operate a minimum number of movements per week. This will enable activating several ghost airports which number to 25% of the operational airports, thus increasing connectivity.
03/07/16 Sudhakara Reddy D/Deccan Herald
